EB Stars: The Wrath of Korax: Rewrite
by Lord CyroMinion
Summary: I told you in my profile I was gonna do this eventually. I've included two mini-prolouges for it in addition to the first 3 chapters which are actually each 3 chapters each in themselves . I will of course write more, but I've improved style again. Review
1. Prolouge Part 1: The Legend of the Beast...

_The War of the Omens: #2: EarthBound Stars  
Prolouge, Part 1: They've Arrived..._

Legal Stuff[blah blah...]: There really is none... except certain characters are copyrights of certain companys... blah blah... yawn. You get the picture.

Disclaimer: I am rewriting Stars, since I've decided to use a detail system more like Erico's[look for his stories in the Mega Man section of FF.net], and using it on the older version of Stars would make it seem all out of place, besides, I wanted to tone down a few more things anyways, and some bits of the plot and a few of the characters from the original version will be gone, mostly since I had too many people at once, and it was hard to keep track of them all. I've cut out about 13 characters not really that necessary to the story, but there are still a lot of characters in this, despite the cut in the number.

Also, this is a _seperate dimension, _or an AU of many games, plus some people in real life, and the real world as well, so if you're wondering why you see DKC characters in EarthBound, or something else like Real People in Hexen, etc, that's why. Also, this following info is very important to remember: Since the WOTO universe is an AU, the pasts of the chosen four are somewhat different from what they probably are in the original, but not drastically different, but let's just say most of them had fighting experience since before their adventure as a group.

Worlds away from the planet of Earth, two cackling menaces have just been resurrected onto our plane of existance. An evil sorceror known as Praevus had traveled to a large world in a nearby galaxy, intent on reviving 3 of the most dangerous beings to ever roam the galaxy. These 3 desolate beings were called the Serpent Riders, and their reign of terror was known on at least 3 major worlds, possibly more. The three beings were actually brothers. 

The youngest and the weakest of the three had been identified as "D'Sparil". None knew what his name meant in reality, but his evil presence was located on a somewhat young, yet flourishing planet known as Parthoris. When D'Sparil arrived, 5 other races, The Sidhe, Ssithra, T'Chekrik, Ogle and Caurthorians were settling into roles, appearently chosen as destiny by the god-like race of their world, the Seraphs. D'Sparil opened World Ripples, a kind of instantaneous mobile portal to put it bluntly, and entered the cities of Silverspring, Andoria, K'Chekrik, S'Chekrik, Vendra, Savria, Thurge and Biskol, and in one day, all but Silverspring had been enslaved by his powers. The Celestial Watcher of Silverspring had seen a pattern in the stars, thus warning the Sidhe, who lived in Silverspring, of the impending doom. Many fled into the Darkmire Swamps and the Kell Mountains. Over time, the other four races subverted by D'Sparil freely chose him as the rightful ruler of their world.  
However D'Sparil's reign was short lived. Not realizing just how dangerous the remaining Sidhe were to him, one took it as his role to be the antidote to D'Sparil's poison. He quickly took his rage, and the that of the other Sidhe, and used it to fight against the minions of D'Sparil. The traveling Sidhe was dubbed as "The Heretic" by others, as he openly defied D'Sparil's power. His travels to D'Sparil's underwater domed city uncovered many stolen artifacts, as well as caches of the Seraph's lost magic. With all this stuff, the elf confronted D'Sparil on his personal arena, and was able to finally overcome the Serpent Rider and with that, his saga ended.

The second of the riders was identifed as Korax, the most corrupted of the three brothers. His presence was found on the world of Cronos, were humans similar to that on Earth itself flourished as the mighty race. The population was divided to 3 sections, the Church, the Legion, and the Arcanum, which were the three major societies of Cronos. One single man ruled each society, thus the whole of Cronos was mastered by three men. Unfortunately, all three were easily corrupted by Korax's offer of "unlife", which means to be dead and alive at the same time, thus making one immortal in a sense. Korax instantly gained control of the entire world, and entombed the 3 leaders in their respective tombs, from which they assisted Korax in his rule over the world, alongside newly created warriors of Korax's, or creatures born from others on the world of Cronos. Korax's power was far greater than D'Sparil's, and the Sidhe didn't exist on Cronos, and it at first seemed Korax would succeed where his younger sibling failed.  
But he too would soon meet his demise. Three heroes emerged, one from each of the 3 former societies. They were known as Baratus of the Legion, Parias of the Church, and Daedolon of the Arcanum. The three originally planned to work together to destroy Korax, but Korax had forseen this, and used his powers to seperate the three warriors. It was only after each individual hero defeated his former master in combat, they remet together at the Dark Crucible, the home to Korax on Cronos. They confronted the malevolent Korax together and fought valiently, and in the end, the newly found skills they had mastered has allowed them to topple the terrifying Korax over like a unbalanced building. It is said from the perspective of a former surviving minion of Korax's, that Korax had actually committed suicide at the very end of his life, knowing he'd die, but he wouldn't say exactly why. It is unknown how Korax actually died.

The third, and the most powerful of the riders was known as Eidolon. Where Korax was at least 20 times stronger then D'Sparil, Eidolon was approximately the same amount of times stronger than Korax was. His presence was on the world of Thyrion, where they had known of the Serpent Riders, although many dismissed the tales as stories told to unruly children, or myths. It was never fully known just how wrong they were. Eidolon, unlike his other brothers, who used deception and trickery to take over the planet, actually used brute force to take over the world of Thyrion. The night before his true attack, a rain of fire came down and scorched the world of Thryion, leaving the surviving people scattered and demoralized, and ended it with his true attack, his army of Golems, which wrecked havoc on any creature that got in their way. Eidolon was also well-aware to the weaknesses of his younger siblings, and did the best he could to protect himself against similar weaknesses. Thryion had consisted of four major nations: Blackmarsh, Septimus, Mazaera and Thysis. Four generals were assigned to guard each individual continent, which were revealed to be the great Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. None knew exactly how Eidolon was able to presuade them into helping, but they were to be feared.  
Again, Eidolon also fell, and from a combined assault of four heroes of that world, each making home in one of the four continents. In little time, all four built up great experience and learned powerful magic and techinques and met in Blackmarsh, were Eidolon's lair had been discovered to persist. The four warriors stormed Eidolon's lair, and the combined might of the four warriors was so much Eidolon wasn't even able to focus his attack on one of them alone, and he fell in a matter of a few minutes, finally ending the existence of the Serpent Riders.

Or so we thought...

Praevus had watched all the battles the Serpent Riders had been involved in, and watched as they all fell to the warriors of their respective worlds. Praevus noticed they were strong at the time, but their ultimate weakness was they they were separate instead of fighting their enemies as a trio, as he rightfully thought they should of. He decided to intervene and gathered the souls of the Serpent Riders and went to Thyrion, causing the rise of Tulku, a new Tibetian type continent on the world. Praevus worked hard and wide, while the heroes of Thyrion were alerted to the presence of Tulku, and made efforts to find out why a powerful winter had suddenly spread all over the entire world. However, Praevus had managed to successfully resurrect Korax and D'Sparil in his efforts. His intentional idea was for the riders to help him exact vegenance against a world that defyed him in the past. That world was actually the Earth itself. The thing was, he had no power available to revive Eidolon, and his brothers wanted him to return to the mortal plane. Praveus told them that the Earth contained extremely powerful magical properties within the core of the planet and that it'd be more than enough to revive Eidolon. Preavus asked Korax that the two brothers destroy the Earth if they wanted to also use its energies to revive Eidolon, and they appeared to agree. However, Korax was much trickier than even Preavus could remember, and the two riders turned on Praevus. Having exhausted about all his energies in reviving the two riders, Preavus could not fight back, and had to flee, regretting his mistake, while the two brothers flew off to Earth anyways, at least content on reviving Eidolon. We do not know yet if they intend to carry out Preavus's original request to destroy our planet or not yet. Little did Preavus know, his mistake would start the biggest chain of events in the history of our universe, called Omenisum...

It is here it all begins...


	2. Prolouge Part 2: The Riders are EarthBou...

_The War of the Omens: #2: EarthBound Stars  
Prolouge, Part 2: We are Planetbound again!!_

Legal Stuff[blah blah...]: There really is none... except certain characters are copyrights of certain companys... blah blah... yawn. You get the picture.

Disclaimer: I am rewriting Stars, since I've decided to use a detail system more like Erico's[look for his stories in the Mega Man section of FF.net], and using it on the older version of Stars would make it seem all out of place, besides, I wanted to tone down a few more things anyways, and some bits of the plot and a few of the characters from the original version will be gone, mostly since I had too many people at once, and it was hard to keep track of them all. I've cut out about 13 characters not really that necessary to the story, but there are still a lot of characters in this, despite the cut in the number.

Also, this is a _seperate dimension, _or an AU of many games, plus some people in real life, and the real world as well, so if you're wondering why you see DKC characters in EarthBound, or something else like Real People in Hexen, etc, that's why. Also, this following info is very important to remember: Since the WOTO universe is an AU, the pasts of the chosen four are somewhat different from what they probably are in the original, but not drastically different, but let's just say most of them had fighting experience since before their adventure as a group.

The blue planet of Earth was covered by layers and layers of clouds, as it always was. As the two Serpent Riders, D'Sparil and Korax, looked at the planet from above, in the form of energy that was invisible to the naked eye, they began to discuss the matter at hand. Both riders knew they had to be cautious. Preavus would most certainly not be tempted to revived them a second time. They had to be especially cautious, as aside from their conquests on Parthoris and Cronos, they had no other experience.

"Brother!" D'Sparil began, "What do you make of it?"   
"What? The planet?" Korax replied, sounding more human as energy than as his true self.   
"Yes. What do you think of it? Does it look like the kind of planet you'd expect to have that kind of magic that... strange Preavus guy spoke of?"  
"Truthfully, I do. The planet seems to be teeming with life, and not in just certain concentrated areas of it, like Cronos. I am not sure how the population was on the world you enslaved, but despite the large oceans, I believe this planet has one of the healthiest sources of magic I have ever seen. Even our home dimension wasn't quite this bright skied."  
"I noticed. I don't know if we helped cause it, but Parthoris was lacking something when I was there. But prehaps I'll learn soon enough."  
"Brother, remember, we are not at full power as of now. Every world has heroes of some form. We know that first hand. We must be careful, even on a world as peaceful looking as the one below."  
"Speaking of which, I wondered about that foolish man's wish to destroy the world of Earth. What do you plan to do to the world of Earth when Eidolon returns?"  
"We will NOT destroy it. I have already decided that. That world's magic might be able to help us in a new goal. We are free from the powers of our former master now. We may be able to return to our home dimension and return to our normal lives."  
"Korax, are you referring to E..."  
"Do NOT speak his name in front of me, brother. I highly recommend against it if we all know what's good for us." Korax interrupted D'Sparil in great despise of their former master, who had unknowingly been the reason they were released into the universe in the first place.  
"Sorry. I did not ever get to know him well, even before we were banished."  
"You are lucky then. I despised him in secret, and so did Eidolon, and we are now free, so we must make sure he doesn't attempt a conquest himself eventually. I don't care much for this universe we are in, but if we destroy him, it might get us back into our own world."  
"Hmm.. we are almost there. We must find a proper place to land."

Korax and D'Sparil were now within the Earth's atmosphere. The planet was large, but there were quite a few islands around. They set down near a chain of them, still in the form of energy. These islands seemed to be dead center in one of the oceans of Earth, and some of the nearby islands had smoke coming from them. As the two touched the ground, they formed into their original selves. D'Sparil was about the size of the average human person, wearing a long red robe, which also covered his face, save his glowing red eyes. Korax... well, he was extremely hard to describe, he was much taller than his younger sibling, and his face was extremely twisted, and he has six arms, and not two like his brothers. He was also a gloomy gray color, except for his evil-like red eyes.

"Well, the climate is... well.. .HOT!" D'Sparil suddenly jumped up and down from the unforgiving heat of the tropical climates they were in. Korax felt the sun heating him up as well, but he didn't bother jumping around like his brother. He was nowhere near as agile as his younger sibling, in fact, for most of the time, he was as slow as a turtle on foot, and preferred teleportation for his traveling, or becoming pure energy.  
"Brother, we should scan the planet for it's focal point of energy." Korax hissed, causing his sibling to calm down.  
"Good point. Maybe we can find a less hot place on this world."

Korax closed his "eyes", even though no one would have been able to see movement in them anyways, and began focusing on the core of the planet, which was what Preavus had called the source of the magic. That was easy enough. It was the focal point that was going to be hard to find. He began following small strains of energy going up toward the surface, and followed them, trying to follow the correct one which would go all the way to the crust of the planet, which was one of the major reasons a planet flourishes so much. After what felt like hours to D'Sparil, but actually only 4 minutes, Korax stirred,

"I have found a place. Use your senses to find the link in my mind, and use a world ripple to take us to that location."  
"Er.. sure thing." D'Sparil used his telepathy to read the link to the power source in his brother's mind and got the location on the world, allowing him to use his world ripple to form a small gateway. The two brothers walked through it...

Only to find themselves under the waves of the ocean. D'Sparil almost jumped out of his robe noticing he was in the water, but Korax looked at the ground below him carefully. _It must be a concealed island, hidden beneath the waves._ He said, noticing the land looked like it was in the shape of an island. He concentrated carefully, locking onto his best power, the power of Chaos. The island began to rumble and shake beneath their feet. Soon, the island began to lift, the grounds holding it down being pulled out of the crust of the Earth, causing the island to slowly resurface. D'Sparil was shocked, now remembing just how powerful his brother was in comparison to himself. It was over in a matter of a few seconds. Korax noticed that above the water, the island looked a lot bigger than below the waves. However, D'Sparil was again jumping around. The heat was even greater here than on the other island. "Yeouch!!" he jumped up, floating a little to prevent his feet, or whatever, from burning off. Korax seemed to not care how hot the climate was. "Man, this planet is flourishing, but how can the people here take such a hot climate?!" D'Sparil growled. 

Korax sighed in an annoyed tone, "Because not all of this planet is hot. We are in the very center of the planet's surface, which must explain why the energy of the planet is so easy to reach here. The farther north or south we get, the colder it gets. The island we were on earlier is about in the same position on the North to South scale, just more to the West or East. That is why it seems so hot now."

With that, the two brothers began scanning the island via small floating and short range teleportation. The island was very grassy, with some sand mixed in for good measure, and the sun shone high. "Or prehaps the star up there can get light to this world better than others as well." D'Sparil mused.

Korax spoke up again, "Well, it is the only one of these worlds close enough to the sun, and yet, not too close, to be able to support life on it. The other worlds seemed to more heavily rely on magic or the molten rock of the world to create their heat/cold sources. The sun is what makes the world hot as well, depending on where on the world you are. Without it, the whole planet would rely way too much on their magic sources to keep it in good shape, rendering it almost useless for all our needs from it."  
D'Sparil was amazed as his elder sibling's knowledge of the new world, "Well, even if we find the way to extract the magic, we need to find out more about this world personally, right?"  
"Correct. That is where I need your help. I need you to roam this world for a while, and learn of it's inhabitants and such. You should also try to find out of anything  
else that can help us in our goal, and learn of any past heroes on this planet. We need to know exactly we might be going up against."  
D'Sparil sighed. He knew Korax would make him do it alone, but he accepted, "If it'll get me out of this hot climate, I'll go ahead, but I want you to travel with me at times, you'll probably understand the concept of stuff much better than I do."  
Korax sighed back, "As soon as I find out what I'm searching for, I will give you a sign, but for now, go."  
"Very well." D'Sparil concentrated his own powers, trying to find a massive group of life-signs, and found many. He opened a world ripple and stepped through.

***********

On the other side of the ripple, D'Sparil entered into a small, dark space. He looked around, noticing the narrowness of his surroundings, and the fact there were weird structures around him. He walked towards a more lit area, noticing a vast open space with many more structures, and what looked to him like large pods racing along the gray roads[or cars if you want to be specfic]. He took in the surroundings with great curiosity, and saw all sorts of people, and he realized.  
"Another human-based planet? Geez, humans are in more places than we thought, but where am I?" 

He suddenly heard steps behind him and a voice, "Hey weirdo, it's much too early for Halloween. Heh." He turned to see a bulky human walking towards him, looking mischievous to him.  
"Eh? Is that you're pitiful attempt at humor, human?" he smiled under his cloak, although no one could see his face.  
"Oooh.. I'm so sorry your sense of humor is small. I guess I might as well just pound you. You're treading in my space, punk!" the man said and swung his fist at him. D'Sparil grinned and easily moved side, and unveiled his imfamous 3-prong staff and slammed the man in the side with the non-pointed end, sending him into the wall. He then pointed the staff at the man's neck.  
"Amusing, but you are weak for a human. Are all of you as weak as this?" he asked.  
"Gah! You must be some kind of freak alien!" the man replied, squirming for his life.  
"All I want is a few answers to my questions, human, and I will let you live." D'Sparil threatened. _I love it when I do that. _He grinned.  
"Anything! Anything!" the man agreed.  
"What is the time of this world, that you know of, that is?"  
"Er... it... it's June 1st, 1997, 12-something-pm. Is that good enough?"  
"Explain your system of time to me."  
"We... well... June is the month of the year, 1997 is the year, and 3 is the day of the month and..."  
"Nevermind... you're too scared to give a solid answer." D'Sparil pulled the staff away. Normally he would've killed annoying pests like this, but he didn't wish to make a scene yet, "Just... get outta here!"  
The man did so without question, running away screaming like a yelping dog.

D'Sparil then decided he should try to see if all the people were that stupid enough to pick fights with him. If not, he'd try to get as much info as possible without making another scene like that. Most of these humans couldn't dream of harming him, so it didn't matter, it was the principal of keeping their presence as concealed as possible that was the issue. He walked down a sidewalk, figuring you weren't supposed to walk between the cars and such. He saw an small furniture store and walked in. At the counter were two humans, a man and his apprentice. The apprentice was younger looking than the other man. He saw D'Sparil and said, "Hey sir, isn't it sorta... well... weird to walk around in that?" _Nervousness. I guess every species has its bad apples._ "It doesn't bother me much, not compared to those scoarching hot islands I was just on?"  
"Ellis Island isn't very hot today. None of the city really is that hot, sir." the older man said to him.   
"I meant the islands in the middle of the world in that big ocean water." D'Sparil said.  
"In the tropics? How could you have gotten here so fast, then?" the apprentice asked.  
"That is really none of your concern, human." D'Sparil growled.  
"Human? You must be an alien of somekind." the apprentice assumed.  
"Alien? Is that what you call people from other worlds?" D'Sparil asked.  
"Yep, he is an alien." the man agreed. _  
I guess that means 'yes'._ D'Sparil thought, "Anyways, do you know where the information center of your world is located?" he asked in a monotone voice.  
"Information center... oh... must be looking for the Library!" the man realized what the Serpent Rider was looking for.  
"Er, I guess that's I mean." he said without any emotion.  
"Come with me. I will show you to the Library. Dwight, watch the store for me." the man said to the apprentice.  
"Yes, sir." the apprentice said.

The man led D'Sparil to his car. D'Sparil looked at it funny. "It's a car. It's a riding vehicle for us on this planet."   
"Very well." D'Sparil shuddered at the car and got in. _This guy has some odd tastes, even for a human. _The man drove him to a large building near the middle of the city. They got out of the car and the man said, "Welcome to the New York City library. You are rather lucky you ended up here. This is one of the largest cities in the world."  
"How large is it, exactly?" D'Sparil asked.  
"It is one of the 5 largest cities in the world." the man replied. "I'll get you started in the library, so you don't feel too lost."  
D'Sparil was reluctant, but needed to know, "Very well. Lead the way, human."  
The man led him into the library, and led him to the librarian's desk. "Excuse us." the man asked the librarian, "But this... person from another world." he looked at D'Sparil, "Needs to look up stuff on this world. Can you direct him to the Encyclopedias, please?"   
"Another world?" the librarian asked, "This must be some joke, but whatever. Follow me, sir." she looked at D'Sparil, "Nice costume by the way, kid."   
"I am not a kid, I am 1000 years old." D'Sparil protested.   
"Sure you are... you're an old fart then, aren't you." she joked. D'Sparil sighed, and decided not to protest, and just get information on the world and get back to Korax as soon as possible. 

He followed the librarian, leaving the man who brought him here behind. She lead D'Sparil up some steps onto the second level of the library and pointed to a large section near a corner. "That is the encyclopedias. They'll help you learn more about this world, my little green man."   
"I am not green. I wear red and..." The librarian already was gone before he could answer completely, "Weird humans, but onto business..." He walked up and pulled out a book and began looking into it...

After about 3 hours of reading, D'Sparil had learned a lot about Earth's histories and technologies, as well as the other species of the planet. He learned Earth was MUCH more advanced in technology then Parthoris. _No wonder this planet's magic is extremely rich in power. Barely any of these humans believe in it, or utilize it, plus they use this technology of theirs to emulate some forms of magic, thus saving its' use._ D'Sparil thought. He has also learned of the many cultures of the people of Earth, learned what certain things were, learned the languages of many different cultures, thinking he could scare Korax or Eidolon with these new forms of talk sometime. He also learned of the corrupted and dark natures people could have, and of anicent myths and heros and gods, and other history of other parts of the planet, and he also learned of the countries and how many of them were ran. _Korax would have a field day with this. I hope he's found a way to extract energy from this planet by now. I'd like to get Eidos back and explain all this to him._

As if his thoughts were read, Korax suddenly contacted him via telepathy, _Brother, I am ready to assist you. I have found our answer, for the most part. _D'Sparil replied, _On my way, Sihab._ D'Sparil opened a large world ripple, which also formed wherever Korax was, and Korax's large frame stepped slowly through it, and he was then in the Library. "Have fun, elder brother?" D'Sparil smirked at Korax.  
"The human's humor is not your strong point, brother." Korax frowned at him, "But, I have found us a place to make home, and it almost right were we need to be. I made a deal with a somewhat powerful force on this world that if I let him overpower a mythic creature on that island, he can hide in his underworld complex in the ground... the COLDER ground, in case you care," D'Sparil looked more interested now. Korax continued, "The focal point of the Earth's magical energy is within that complex, and to our luck, we are the only one capable of utilizing it properly. Anyways, we have some leeway. What have you learned, brother?"  
"Well, we've probably hit the proverbial jackpot here! These humans don't believe in the existance of magic. Here, read this stuff while I check out the rest of the library." D'Sparil shoved all the books in Korax's face.  
"Ugh... fine. I need to learn stuff about this world anyways." he grumbled, as D'Sparil walked off to look around. Korax had bascially ended up learning the same things as D'Sparil, but he also took note of the smaller details of it too, making sure he understood it piece by piece. In only 2 hours, he was done reading and bored stiff from the experience. He had to get up and walk around a little. He rose and looked around, going down the steps to the lower level of the Library. The Librarian looked at him and said, "Woah, and who are you?" she asked. Korax wasn't sure if he should answer her, but then D'Sparil intervened. "My brother. He's from where I am too. He's over 3000 years old." D'Sparil smirked. "Ooookay..." the librarian decided not to ask, and just left.  
"Weird people these humans are." Korax mumbled. "They're that way." D'Sparil said, "Anyways, I was kinda looking for you. I want you to come and try this new thing called a Computer out. Come." he led the reluctant Korax to the back of the Library, where a whole set of computers were.

D'Sparil sounded intrigued by what these machines could do. "These things are just a small example of the advanced technology of this planet. They seem like magic, but it's electronics and such, whatever that really means." "They can use electricity to their advantage to make a lot of this stuff mostly." Korax answered. "Good... you have been reading up lately." The two brothers took a seat at different computers. Korax just happened to sit next to the person D'Sparil threatened in the alley earlier when he arrived. "What kind of suit is that?!" he asked Korax, "Suit? This is my body, not some stupid suit, human." "Human?! AAAHHHH!!! Another one of those strange aliens!!" D'Sparil recognized the voice. _Oh brother, idiot boy decided to grace us with his presence. _"Hey, 'old friend'!" he called to the man. The man then saw D'Sparil and freaked, "AHHHH!!! They're invading us!! Run for your lives!!" the man screamed and left. The librarian picked up a white phone and dialed a string of the numbers and then said, "Please come down to the library. Some lunatic man just screamed about aliens. Yes. I'm serious. He's a loon." she then hung up the phone. "Must have seen those two weirdos who claim they're 1000s of years old." she sighed, looking at an old tabloid about aliens making a base out of StoneHenge.

D'Sparil and Korax were using the internet as it was called, and looking around, it was much like a electronic encyclopedia. The two had learned of even more current happenings in the world, and Korax found something interesting, reading tabloids from a place called Winters. 

"Hmmm. It seems other aliens have recently attempted an invasion and failed."   
"Eh?" this got D'Sparil's attention.  
Korax looked at related tabloids, talking about police obsessed with rockblocks, cults that were devoted to the color blue, zombies invading a city, bands in debt with theatre managers, big rats in the sewers of cities, a prince from a foreign country visiting a resort beach town, raiders of a pyramid, swamps as dark as night, hidden underworlds, and the most interesting one of all, an alien known as "Giygas".  
"Hmmm, this could be very useful to us. I must look up more on this Giygas guy." Korax muttered almost to himself.  
He used a search engine and entered in Giygas as a name. To his surprise, it was a widely mention name. He looked at the top site, which was known as [www.starmen.net][1][author's note: yes, I'm giving you all mention], and looked around, and read the first time page. It mentioned that starmen.net was based on a game called EarthBound, which was made based on the real-life adventures of 4 teenage children who fought the evil alien force called Giygas[author's note: the site is a bit different in this dimension, since in this dimension, EB was based off a real-life event]. "These humans have made a game based on Giygas' invasion. These humans have odd taste indeed." D'Sparil said, looking at what his brother had been looking up. They looked up all the things and info on the 4 heroes who fought against Giygas. Korax seemed interested in the one called Ness, especially when he discovered Ness was supposably one with the powers of Earth at one time. "Hmmm... these heroes aren't our average heroes, they're much younger, can use telepathy and such to control stuff, etc. One's a pure genius in human standards, one is a also a prince."  
D'Sparil also decided to say something, "Not to mention one of them could harness the Earth's power at one time. He might make trouble for us. I'll bet if anything really big concerning us happens, they'll hear about it and come after us."  
Korax was now deep in thought, "Hmmm... not if I can help it. Let's return to the Underworld Complex." D'Sparil locked onto the energy source of the underworld complex and opened a world ripple and entered it. Korax stepped near and looked back at the image of Ness on the computer screen, "If you are truly a hero of this world, I wonder how you would compare to me, Ness. We will probably never find out though." Korax sighed, almost disappointed and stepped through the world ripple...

*************

It was dark, cold, and tinted red in the void Giygas hung in. It had been two years since four young heroes came and vanquished his "physical" being. He had gone half insane from all the abuse a former minion of his had put him through, and locked away in a machine. When his minion shut off the machine to make Giygas attack the four heroes, one of them, a young girl, the age of 14 years had discovered a way to send him away, although they had thought they had totally destroyed him. _Blast you, Ness! Blast you, Paula! Blast all of you annoying kids! Blast you Earth! You stupid humans just don't know when to die, do you? If only I could be restored to what I used to be at one time, I would crush you! _Giygas suddenly heard a responce.  
_Well hello, Giygas _The voice sound like Korax's._  
Who is this?! Answer me!  
Calm down, I am here to help you.  
How could YOU help me?  
I know about Ness and his friends, and I know you want revenge, right?  
WHO are you? How do you know about them, and how are you contacting me?  
If you absolutely must know, I am Korax, the Serpent Rider. Does it ring a bell?  
Serpent Riders?! I thought you were destroyed.  
Well, foolish humans make foolish mistakes. I can bring you back to what you once where, but I want you to help me.  
If I can destroy my old enemies, I will help you. What is your pitiful request?  
I want you to be my 3rd in command, and I wanted you to help me stop Ness and his posse and any other would-be-heroes from interrupting my plans.  
Which are?  
That is classified information for now. I can easily leave you here, so I'd like an answer before the world blows up from overheating, please.  
_Giygas growled, this was the only known way to exact vengence, but he regretted he'd have to answer to a supposably higher power.  
_I will let you do with the remainder of this planet as you please, as well, if that'll help presuade you.  
_Giygas's "scowl" became a smile and he decided to respond. _Korax... I more than accept your little offer, but you must tell be of your plans once I have returned, if you can return me to the Earth plane.  
Hah hah hah!! Consider it done, friend._

   [1]: http://www.starmen.net



	3. Chapter 1: The Cat that Stalks at Night

_The War of the Omens: #2: EarthBound Stars  
Chapter 1: The Boy and the Cat_

Legal Stuff[blah blah...]: There really is none... except certain characters are copyrights of certain companys... blah blah... yawn. You get the picture.

This is a _seperate dimension, _or an AU of many games, plus some people in real life, and the real world as well, so if you're wondering why you see DKC characters in EarthBound, or something else like Real People in Hexen, etc, that's why. Also, this following info is very important to remember: Since the WOTO universe is an AU, the pasts of the chosen four are somewhat different from what they probably are in the original, but not drastically different, but let's just say most of them had fighting experience since before their adventure as a group.

Note: I do not have characters shout out their PK attacks in these stories. PK is from the mind, not a magic spell, so what's the point in chanting it out? It might make it seem cooler, but it's not any more good for anything but just that.

June 3rd, 1999...

It would start as an average day in the life of Ness Franklin, an old, simple boring day, at least in comparison to some of the days he had ever gone through. Sure today was the day of one of the town of Onett's bigger tournament baseball games, and baseball happened to be one of the boy's greatest desires in life, but smacking the baseballs thrown to him seemed like nothing after smacking around psycho robots in the shape of stars, or the other aliens the young man faced. He had been the leader of the four children, now teenagers, once involved with stopping the invasion of Giygas. Compared to the boredom of now, fighting Giygas' forces would've been much more fun to Ness, even if the world was at stake, even if he himself was the sole person fighting. He liked the concept of the adventure, even if it was one of the most dangerous events in his own life.

Yes, just a basic, average day in his life. Aside from odd dreams he'd have, reliving old events long passed in the battle against the invader turned evil embodiment. He would see most of the events in slow motion. He always remembered Pokey's last vow to come back for revenge. He wasn't content at the Earth being in danger, but a part of him wished to stop his former neighborhood childhood friend turned into a sour apple by Giygas, once and for all, for the sake of one more adventure. Little did he know of the recent events occurring in the world, especially the tabloids reporting strange aliens in the city of New York in America, a country a good distance from his country of Eagleland.

After what seemed to be an easy day in the baseball game for his team, Ness had gone home for the night, saying hi to his mother, his dog King and his sister Tracy. They all sat down at the table for dinner, which included Ness's favorite food, Steak.  
"Nice meal, mom." Tracy piped up, eating the cheesy sidedish her mom made with the steak.  
"I thought you didn't think much of Steak?" Ness looked at her with the average sibling rivalry type look on his face.  
"Not the steak, the cheese noodles, Baseball Brain!" Tracy replied, going back to her food.  
"Hey, I may like baseball, but I have nothing else I can really do!" Ness argued.  
"I know of something." his mom smiled, interrupting him.  
"What do you suggest, mom?" Ness asked her, wondering what her suggestion was.  
"Go and see your little friend, Paula. I'm sure you two are extremely close, especially since that date of yours two years ago." she ended with a smile.  
Ness however went red in the face a bit, "Mooom... it wasn't what I'd call a date. We only went to a Runaway Five performance and had a quick meal after."  
"Sure, you looked thin enough after that day, mister date." Tracy teased. Ness had looked quite full that day in reality, so Tracy loved teasing him about it.  
"I admit we're getting closer, but I tell you it wasn't a date, honest!" Ness protested.  
"If you wish to not mention it anymore, I won't bring it up again." his mom somewhat smiled.  
Ness sighed, "It's okay, mom. I just get annoyed when she teases me about that."  
"And you think you don't annoy me sometimes." Tracy laughed, flicking a noodle in Ness's face.  
"Go outside if you two are gonna throw stuff at each other!" their mom almost scolded them.  
"Yes, let's go outside. And I hope you can fill that water pistol of yours to the top." Ness smirked somewhat evily.  
"Okay, you asked for it!" Tracy rushed up stairs, getting her water gun, a twin barreled Super Soaker©, and rushed down and went outside.  
Ness and Tracy's laughter was heard throughout the town as they got each other royally soaked...

That night, Ness washed up and went to bed after his narrow escape from defeat at his sister's hands in water gun wars. No one had truly won that little farce, and he had to admit his sister could make more fun out of a boring situation then he remembered, but she also hadn't been through what he had been through, so she probably had it good compared to him. In all his thoughts, he drifted off to sleep...

*********

It was late at night, and the suburbs of Onett were quiet. The creature quickly dashed through the small down, past the town hall, past the burger shop, then the library, and to the right, and he was head right at the door of Ness's house.

Ness would soon hear knocking at his downstairs door. He turned in bed and ignored it, but in a few minutes, his bedroom door was being knocked on now. He bolted upright out of bed with a yelp. He had been knocked out of a interesting dream about Pokey coming back for revenge, and Giygas had been with him. He said, "Hello?" "Ness, can we come in?" it was his mom's voice. "Um, okay." he replied meekly.

The door opened, and his mom, Tracy and King walked in, but with them was someone, no, _something _he'd not recognized. It was a small white cat. He walked alongside King and when they stopped at the bed, he lunged onto the foot of the bed. Ness was taken back a little back at the cat's actions. His mom spoke, "Ness, I know you can speak with King via Telepathy, but either this cat can talk like a person, or we've inherited the same power as you, and since King still can't understand us, so we assume the earlier of it.

_A talking cat? Is this real? _Ness wondered. "Yes it is real, Ness." the cat replied, supposedly reading his mind. "Wah! You can talk! You move your lips and everything and..."  
"Ness! I must speak with you. I can explain that when we have the time." the cat shushed him, with a slight frown at Ness.  
The boy calmed himself, "Er, what's wrong? Why have you come to see me?"  
The cat sighed, and began to explain, "First off, my name is Artemis. I am not from this country. In fact, I am not from this part of the planet, but I am very aware of the dangers that are about to threaten it."  
_Another adventure to save the Earth? _Ness thought, then he got a real good look at Artemis, not noticing one other major detail of him. He had a crescent moon on his forehead. At that sighting, Ness had a flashback about earlier that day at the baseball field. He had been sitting out to get a break, and he had kept seeing a white cat on the other side of the gate, looking towards him. He assumed it was a lost cat at first, and saw something on his head, like a mark, but only now he realized this was that same cat.  
"Wait, aren't you the cat that was at the baseball game earlier?" Ness asked.  
"Yes, Ness. I was wanted to get a good look at you. You see, I have been sent by friends of mine to get your help, especially since an old evil threatens this world again."  
"What?! Is it...?"  
"Yes, Giygas has returned, and he is now in a physical form. I remember the details of your fight with him, and how he had lost his mind. He has been restored to what he originally was before he even arrived on Earth two years ago." Artemis answered.  
"So, that one dream about him still hovering out there somewhere..."  
"Yes, it was a sign of what is to come, if you don't stop him as soon as possible."  
"Do you know who resurrected Giygas?"  
"I do not know much about them, but New York had seen the culprits for a short time. I believe they called themselves the Serpent Riders."  
"The what?" Ness was confused.  
"I looked up books on the Serpent Riders, trying to get a lead on them. I learned of tales of world domination of other worlds at the hands of those monsters. Apparently they have targeted Earth as their next world. Someone has resurrected two of them, as they had also been originally destroyed eons in the past."  
"This sounds quite bad."  
"It IS bad. I know for sure the Serpent Riders are probably much stronger than what Giygas is, even now."  
"WHAT?! You have to be kidding me! They're that strong?! I know I wanted another adventure, but I'm not sure if I can do it if they're THAT strong!"  
"Ness, you aren't going to be alone, you will not only reunite with your old friends, but I'm sure others are going to be after Giygas, and will make friends with you, and I'll be one of them."  
"What? You're coming with me?"  
"Don't be surprised Ness Franklin. I am more than just a cat. I will be your teacher for a while. I know of many new techniques that might save your little hide someday. And I have a bit of a fighting record myself. However, I have learned Giygas isn't alone in his quest to take over the world. Other than the Serpent Riders, other evil powers have chosen Giygas to help lead them to ultimate victory over the Earth. It won't be pretty, but you fought against Giygas once, and you will have to face him once again."  
"Well, I guess it stands. Do you have any idea what we should do first?" Ness asked the cat.  
"Well, it is suggested we go and find your friends as soon as possible for one. Whatever we do, we need to start now. Are you awake enough to possibly fight? I believe the influence of Giygas is quickly spreading, like before. We might have to fight in Onett a little, or a lot."  
At that point, an explosion of some kind was heard to Ness's west. _Pokey's House. Something's wrong there. I must go and check it out._ "Hmmm... something's outside next to Pokey's house." Tracy said, taking a look out the window. She then screamed and threw herself to the ground as something screamed at where she just was.  
"Tracy!" Ness ran to see if she was fine.  
"I'm okay. But whatever that thing is, it's not happy to see anyone around." she replied.  
Ness and Artemis looked out the window at the sight in front of them. Something in a dark robe had shot something up at his window, and it was preparing to fire at them now. Ness was able to get a glimpse of a whitish dome around Pokey's house. But he had to duck as a fireball was launched his way.  
"Artemis, we'd better stop that thing before it hurts someone!" Ness called, "But first, I gotta go get dressed. Could you guys leave for a second?" 

They all sweatdropped and promptly walked out, and soon after, Ness jumped out the door, all dressed up in his striped shirt, his yellow backpack, and his Gutsy Bat from his original adventure at hand.  
"Wow, you changed fast." Artemis looked at him with a strange glance.  
"Well, the house ** is** under attack!" Ness said.  
They quickly rushed downstairs, and Ness and Artemis went out the door, and confront the robed creature. They were able to see it's head: a large cow's skull.  
"So you are willing to die?" it spoke to them in a venomous voice.  
"Who are you?! How dare you attack helpless people you monster!" Ness growled.  
"I will be your doom, but if you want a specific name, I am a Shadow Wizard. I am a high ranking general in the armies of the Serpent Riders. You foolish Earth people probably don't even know who we are, do you?"  
"I have heard of the Serpent Riders, and I am going to put a cork in their plans!" Ness growled at it.  
"Eh? So you must be one known as Ness. Korax told us about you and your meddling friends. We will not let you interfere in our plans, boy. You may have once been this world's hero, but you will easy splatter underneath my feet!" the Shadow Wizard growled, and held out his bony hand and shot out a scatter of fireballs. Ness and Artemis threw themselves under the fireballs. Ness clubbed the Shadow Wizard with his bat, causing it to reel back.  
"Har har har!!" it cackled and vanished into thin air in a teleportation techinque.  
"Look out! He'll probably reappear nearby somewhere!" Artemis called.  
Sure enough, the cat was right. The Shadow Wizard reappeared behind Ness and sent the boy flying back a little with a replusion spell. The attack did no actual damage, aside from Ness hitting the ground from lack of balance.  
"Cheapskate!" Ness growled, and SMAAASHed the Shadow Wizard across his skinless head, sending the Shadow Wizard flying to the side and on its stomach. It got up and growled at him. "Fool. Why do you insist on dying?" it aim it's hand at the ground in front of him. In a flash, two spiders twice the size of a tennis shoe were summoned in front of Ness and Artemis. "Take them down, my underlings!" the Wizard cackled to the spiders. Artemis however, had other plans. He held up his paw, and swung it at the Spider, and it sent the spider flying into the cliff behind it, in two separate halves. Artemis contended with the second spider in a similar way, resulting in it splitting into two separate halves down the middle.  
"Stupid animal! How can you match my precious spiders?! I will destroy you for that!!" it growled and formed a large fireball in his hand, which hurled at Artemis. Artemis nimbly dodged the fireball and ran at the Shadow Wizard with full force. "Wrong!" he yelled as gold energy formed around his body, now spinning like a cannonball. He flew right through the body of the Shadow Wizard, instantly causing it to break into many pieces, dropping its skull along the ground, which faded away after a few seconds. Artemis landed with good grace. Ness was amazed at this and asked, "Are strong are you? And what kind of moves are those?" Artemis replied, "Right now, I am most likely a bit more powerful than you, but you will most likely surpass me after a while, in fact, most of your friends will most likely surpass my powers... if we get that far."  
  
Tracy and Ness's mom came back outside and looked around. "You defeated it, brother?" asked Tracy.   
"Yep. Artemis actually finished it, but I weakened it for the most part." Ness exclaimed. He then remembered the dome around Pokey's house, "This guy seemed to be guarding Pokey's old house. I wonder what's up with that?" Ness asked.  
Artemis knew something more was to it. He walked up to the dome and tried to touch it, but his paw was repelled from it. "Ness, this is a barrier. That Shadow Wizard must have placed it here before we destroyed him. They must need this place for something if it's being guarded."  
"I guess going to get my friends is our only option. Artemis, get behind me." Ness requested  
"Why?" the cat asked, curiously.  
"I'm going to teleport us to Twoson, the town in the South, to see my first friend, Paula. You have to have a slight running start, so you must remain around the user of the teleport." Ness explained.  
"Well, okay."  
Ness then activated Teleport Beta and they began running around in circles, Ness focusing on Twoson, but after a while, something was wrong. Ness wasn't lifting off the ground like he usually was. He then suddenly stopped.  
"Oh no! Don't tell me my teleportation doesn't work!" Ness cried.  
"Great..." Artemis replied, "The Serpent Riders... or Giygas, must be behind this. But how can they interrupt teleportation? I mean, their minions can do it, even if it is short range, so why not us?"  
"I'm not sure, but we're going to have to walk." Ness said, and looked back to his family, "I'd better go in and call dad to ask him about his views on this. I'll be right back guys."  
Ness walked inside, and picked up the phone and dialed his dad's business number. When he heard the reply on the other end, his eyes went wide, then into a angered look and he screamed, "Giygas!! You better not dare!!!"  
This caught everyone else's attention, and they rushed in quick. "Ness, dear. What happened?"  
"Dad... Giygas has... has... he's kidnapped Dad!" Ness ended in a growl in hate for Giygas.  
"He's kidnapped your father?" asked Artemis.  
"Yes. I got an automated reply. It said Giygas has kidnapped my Dad, and it planning to... to change him into his successor, or something. It's terrible. Now it's getting personal. And now.. I'm worried Paula will be in similar danger... we HAVE to get to Twoson quickly!" Ness said, grabbing Artemis and bolting towards the door, "Mom, Tracy... please take care of yourselves. I'll be back whenever humanly possible. Goodbye. I love you all." he said, then bolting out the door with Artemis.  
"We love you too, Ness." his mom said.  
"Take care, my bigger yet sometimes absentminded brother." Tracy said, looking at the floor, with slight helplessness in her eyes.  
"Tracy, you seem extremely disturbed." her mom then spoke.  
"Yes. I know I can't help him at all this time. I no long work for Escargo Express, therefore I can't monitor his progress anymore, like last time. He's totally without any support from me or Dad. Mom, you are the only one of us that can get contact with him every so often now... if he even comes across any phones along the way that is." Tracy began to cry a little, worried for her brother's safety.  
"Ness is strong, and so are his friends, and he will not just have them to help them. You heard Artemis... others are trying to fight Giygig, or whatever his name is. Have faith in him. I do." her mom said, hugging her.  
"I'll... try..." she said, between muffled sobs... 

***********

Ness and Artemis bolted from Ness's yard and down the path towards the town of Onett. As they reached the corner, a bolt of green energy flew at Ness and barely missed him, sailing into a tree. Ness and Artemis looked for the source of the bolt of energy. They found a creature above in armor and a cattle-skull like helmet. Ness could sense they were human, in a sense, but that they meant trouble, as another one of the creatures appeared next to the first and armed a red blast of power onto what looked like a bow, the blast in the shape of an arrow. "Get down!" Artemis screamed as the red arrow blazed past them into the ground. Ness aimed PK Special Beta at the two creatures. The psychokinetic blast sent the two troops into the air, and they landed in the bushes, not getting back up. The two turned the corner and ran past the library, when three more creatures emerged from the bushes ahead. One looked like a large pink-skinned Minotaur creature, the other two creatures looked like big red, round heads with large rows of teeth formed into a involuntary smile, and a single eye on the top. "Destroy the human and the cat!" the pink being growled and pointed towards Ness and Artemis.

The two heads floated near Ness and one belched a red fireball right in his face. Ness felt a sting from the fireball, but it was nothing compared to even the beams the Starmen of Giygas used. Artemis dodged a set of fireballs from the other head. Artemis swiped his claws once again, almost cutting the head-type being right into two pieces. Ness used PK Special Gamma, and blasted both heads away from him and the wave also did considerable damage to the pink creature. It growled and swung it's green energy saturated hand into Ness's stomach, sending him to the ground. The hit was moderate, but much more damaging than the fireball he was hit with a few moments ago. Ness got up, and swung his bat across the creatures head, smashing it into the Library walls. The one of the two head creatures came back into the battle, and bit Artemis, doing almost the same damage to him that had just been dealt to Ness. "So you wanna play rough, do ya?" Artemis growled and actually scratched the head across the front of it's face. Needless to say, it was destroyed, and it's wound wasn't very pretty to look at. The pink creature formed green energy from his hand into the form of a fireball and hurled it at Ness, but he dodged it barely, and rushed at the creature and SMAAASHED it into the air. It landed way over where the meteorite was at, looking like it had died while in mid-flight.

They were about to go into town itself when Ness heard a familar voice. "Ness? You saved us?" it belonged to one of his friends from the treehouse, who also played alongside him in baseball. Ness recoginzed the boy. "Gary? What are you doing out this late?!" asked Ness. "Late? It's 7:30 in the morning Ness." Ness and Artemis looked wide-eyed, "Don't ask why it's still so dark out here. I have no idea. I went out here, and it never got lighter, and all these monsters and creatures began materializing out of nowhere. It was madness, Ness. But you seem to be on the job, so I want to give this to you." he handed Ness a strange looking sphere. It looked red and had shades of blue pulsating in it, "One of the creatures you just defeated dropped it earlier. It should help you in some way. You must get out of here. Please save us again, from whatever it is that's doing this." Gary then ran back to the clubhouse as fast as possible.

"I will stop the Serpent Riders, and I will destroy you, Giygas! You will not get your way with my father, you heartless freak!" Ness growled, "Come on, Artemis." "That's the spirit, Ness!" Artemis smiled and they took off past the Burger Shop and all the way past the City Hall, but then another voice called out to them. "HEY YOU!!" They stopped and turned around, seeing a new creature at the top of the steps of the town hall. It looked like a large half-man/half bull creature, and he held a large, meanacing hammer in his left hand. "Yes, you... you are the ones who threaten D'Sparil, aren't you?" "D'Sparil's one of the Serpent Riders. You must be a minion of his!" Artemis said. "Yes, I am one of his strongest warriors, the Maulotaur. I wish to test you. I will not allow you to go on unless you defeat me. I can make sure of it, little one." It swung it's hammer in a meancing gesture at them. "I guess we must fight it. Ready Artemis?" Ness asked Artemis. He replied with a nod. They both took off at the Maulotaur, each of them attack it from a different side to divert it's attention. The Maulotaur swung its hammer, send a volley of fireballs at the charging heroes. Artemis jumped over the fireballs, while Ness had to roll under them, making him lose some momentum. Artemis scratched it across the chest, leaving scratch marks, but the Maulotaur swatted Artemis away with the hammer. Artemis landed on his feet, but rubbed his side from the damage. Meanwhile, Ness had managed to swipe its legs out from underneath it, making it fall on its face, but it laughed at them, and pounded his hammer into the ground, sending a wave of fire along the ground at Ness. He was too close to dodge and the fire wave slammed into him and sent him flying back into a bush. Ness got up and rubbed his head. "He plays dirty, I see." Ness focused his powers into a major source, and shot PK Special Omega into the large bull, blasting it back into a column holding up the roof of the town hall. He got up and dashed at Ness, attempting to gore him, but Ness dodged and SMAAASHed him over the head as he flew by. However, the attack stopped the creature in mid-dash, allowing him to swipe his hammer into Ness's face, blasting him back. He held his face in pain, and used Lifeup Beta, healing most of his injuries. "Come on, fur-face! I'm still here! Come and get me!" The bull merely smirked.. "Heh... no, not right now. I have underestimated you, but I will return another time. Round 1 goes to you, Ness." it laughed and teleported away in a ring of energy.

"That was weird." Artemis mused. "He'll most likely come back, though." Ness assured him, "Just like I bet Pokey's back as well." He looked into the dark sky, "Why is it so dark, at this time of morning? I mean, I thought it was 1 in the morning or something, but it seems to be much later than that. All the people inside their houses in fear doesn't help either." "Well, they aren't willing to risk their lives, Ness. Everyone wants to live full lives. Despite our actions, I'm sure both of us do too, right?" "Yeah, all of us do." Ness replied, "But we need to be off before something else interrupts our journey to Twoson, darn teleportation blockers!" The two rushed down the arcade and into the path to Twoson, passing by one of the houses where Ness got one of his first Exit Mouse. "Artemis, could you wait here a sec?" "Sure thing, I guess." Ness went up to the door and knocked on it. "Wh.. who is it?" asked a meble voice. "It's just me, the one who got a mouse from you once." Ness said. "Oh.. .c... come in..." the voice said. Artemis saw Ness go in, and after bit, he came back out and said, "Thanks." "No problem, be careful now." the voice told him. "What did you do?" Artemis asked Ness. "I got something that might help us later on. Let's go now." Ness replied. They continued down to the small cave into Twoson, but they saw more creatures blocking their path. These creatures were another unique breed. They looked like an unidentifable species with a face mask, a segergated sword, and a shield with someone's face on it as an emblem. 

"Stop where you are, human scum!" one growled, and pointed its sword at Ness. They seemed to not noticed Artemis too well. Ness then noticed Artemis was hiding in a tree, planning a sneak attack. Ness decided to divert their attention. "So, who are you guys? Minions of the Serpent Riders?" he asked. "You know well, human. We serve Korax, the second of the mighty Serpent Riders. We do not tolerate any form of creature interfering with his plans, none much less you." _Korax must be the one in charge of it all, as D'Sparil is weaker than he is, Eidolon was stronger from the book, and only two of them were revived, appearently Korax and D'Sparil. _Artemis thought to himself. "Well, I already defeated one of your Maulotaurs, if you care enough for your own lives." Ness warned them with a smirk. "The Maulotaur also survived, vowing revenge. He told us to be expecting you, so prepare to die. You may be able to handle less concentrated groups of enemies, but we Centaurs and Slaughtaurs are mass group attackers. You will not survive!" another said to Ness. "Hate to break it, but I have powers that can attack groups of enemies." Ness smirked more and shot PK Special Gamma at the group of Centaurs. Some of them instantly fell, but most of them held up their shields, which surprisingly protected them from most of the attack." "And we are also aware of that. Our shields can block about any form of energy, so you better be very good at melee combat, big guy." one of the Centaurs taunted. This worried Ness a bit, but he didn't seem **too **worried. He then used PK Flash Omega on the group of Centaurs. A whole lot of them collapsed instantly, some only felt minor effects from it, and some weren't affected at all. "H...how?!" one of them growled, "How can you use that power without us blocking it?!" "It's not energy, it's merely light, you morons. Your shields do not reflect or block light the way this power works." Ness said, "This Korax guy had better take me much more seriously than this, or he'll be history." Just then, Artemis jumped out of his hiding spot at the Centaurs, and with a few well placed swipes, 12 more Centaurs of the remaining 17 fell to the ground, assuambly dead or out like lights. The remaining 5 growled at them, but knew they had no chance in their reduced numbers. "We will get you later. You may be strong now, but we have more cards in our decks. Retreat!!" one said, and the Centaurs ran off through the caves into Twoson. Ness and Artemis quickly followed, in their journey to reunite with Paula on their adventure...

**********

When they reached the small clearing of Twoson, the skies were slightly brighter than in Onett, but they weren't much better off than in Onett itself. "So Ness, this is Twoson, right?" "Yes. Follow me to Paula's house." "Hold it, you imbecilic humans!" "Now what?!" Ness asked out loud. He saw five man-sized creatures made of stone, reanimated stone to be exact. They looked at Ness and Artemis with angered expressions. "Who are YOU?!" asked Artemis. "We are the Stone Golem Elite! We serve in the frontal ranks of Master Eidolon and Master D'Sparil's armies. Your end come here, mortals!" "So these are the Golems Eidolon used on the world of Thyrion in that book, and ones like D'Sparil's on the world known as Parthoris." "Yes, feline. We were a part of Master Eidolon's frontal attack on the pitiful world of Thyrion. Must living beings were cannon fodder to us, and so will you. It'll take more than mind tricks to overcome us." one said. Just then, one slid at Ness and belted him in the face with a punch, knocking the fillings out of Ness and sending him to the ground. Ness used Lifeup Gamma to restore the entirety of his health and retaliated with a SMAAASHing attack to the Golem's midsection, plus a hard smash on its head, and ended it with a SMAAASHing fist to it's face. It fell back, one of it's arms shattering from the force of Ness's attack. Ness rubbed his stinging hand from the hit. "That smart." Artemis put a paw to his forehead. "Now to show you a another technique of mine, Ness." he said, looking dead at the Golems. "Scatter Beam!!" he called, and a large beam in the shape of the moon on his head erupted forth at the one of the Golems. As it neared, it suddenly split into five separate beams, each one slamming into a Golem's head. The Golem Ness attacked had his head blasted off into pieces, and it fell to the ground, no longer controlled by Korax's magic. The other 4 Golems were severely damaged, but still going. One pounded down at the ground, trying to hit Artemis, but he jumped back, but another Golem was expecting this and belted the airborne Artemis, sending him flying right into Ness's arms. "Ouch! Those things hurt!" the cat growled, shaking his head, and jumping back onto the ground. Ness rushed into the group and swung his bat around in a cyclone, and two Golems were nailed for enough damaged that they exploded into chunks of rock. Another Golem was about to make a swing at Ness's head again, when out of almost nowhere, someone's leg slammed into the Golem's stomach with great speed, shattering it from the middle into pieces, unmoving. Ness, Artemis and the remaining Golem turned to where the Golem had been shattered. They saw a girl, apparently a teenager, with shoulder length blonde hair, a pink dress, and was wearing shoes like Ness', but smaller, and a red ribbon in her hair was what allowed Ness to confirm her identity. "Paula? How'd you find us? And did you do that to that Golem?" Ness asked the girl, and pointed to the recently destroyed Golem. Paula grinned back, almost cutely. "I felt your PK signature getting closer. There have been creatures, including these weird stone guys attacking Twoson. Also, I wasn't expecting that kick to actually destroy it, just get it away from you, but you must've weakened it beforehand." She then noticed Artemis, "Who's this cat?" "Oh... well..." Ness's face turned serious, "Paula, I'm afraid we're into another worldwide problem." Paula's face turned to a slight frown, "I figured on that. The sky's unusually dark for this time of day." "You're telling me! Onett's the same way." Ness replied. "So, this is Paula?" asked Artemis. "Oh, Paula, this is Artemis. He's the one who warned me of the attack on the world. It seems we also have new enemies." "I see. I assumed that from the look of some of these creatures. Pigs with Shotguns, weird creatures with shields, red floating red type things and such aren't exactly minions I'd expect Giygas to send after us." "Pigs with shotguns?" asked Artemis. "You must not have met them yet. Those things almost put holes in my arms many times. I swear they love aiming there or something." Paula replied, annoyed at these pig creatures she spoke of. Just then, Artemis saw the remaining Golem fleeing the group. "Hey! Where're you going?!" he growled at it. "The last Golem! I forgot about him!" Ness said, aiming PK Special Gamma at it. The Golem broke into many pieces.

"Well, that takes care of that little problem." Artemis said, "Ness, we've found Paula. Now who do we need to find?" "Well..." Ness was nervous, "My other friends don't live remotely near here." Paula continued, "Jeff and Poo don't live in the same country as Ness and I do. Jeff lives in a snowy country called Winters. Poo lives in a oriental eastern country known as Dalaam." "Well, Paula... I can't seem to teleport. These Serpent Riders... or Giygas, have found a way to block out PK Teleportation somehow." Paula looked forlong, "Uh-oh. We're in a mess then, aren't we?" "Well, perhaps you can contact them, Paula, maybe Poo can teleport into Eagleland with Jeff. Paula looked more forlong, "Won't work. I tried to contact **you** earlier when the creatures were first attacking Twoson. I can't reach you via telepathy, and I doubt it's a coincidence. I tried contacting Jeff earlier, and I couldn't get through to him telepathically, and when I called in Winters at his father's lab, Dr. Andonuts said something about Jeff going up to Snow Wood to investigate a recent raid on the school." "Darnit! Jeff must be dealing with them on his own up there, and we can't get to him right now! Blast it!" Ness growled. "Ness, let's go to my house for a short bit and recuperate, and maybe something will come to us. Without teleportation or telepathy, there's not much we can do at the moment." Paula suggested. "Might as well rest a bit. Although that barrier around that one kid's house... he was named Pokey, right?" Artemis asked. "Pokey? I guess it's not much of a surprise to me." Paula said, not very fond of Pokey over his actions on their old adventure. "Yes, why?" Ness asked Artemis. "Maybe there's a gateway in his house. That barrier has to be guarding something important to Korax or D'Sparil, and I read up that D'Sparil is capable of creating something called a World Ripple. It says a world ripple is a mini portal D'Sparil used to march his armies into the major cities on the world of Parthoris and enslave it so quickly. They are easy enough for him to form." Artemis explained. "If so, perhaps we can get out of Eagleland with one, or even reach Korax and D'Sparil's hiding place!" Ness mused. "It is far too early to consider even challenging either Rider. As I said, both are strong than Giygas is with his restored physical form." "Huh?! Stronger than Giygas?! Both of them?" it was Paula's turn to ask questions. "I'm afraid so, Paula. The Serpent Riders are extremely powerful beings in the universe. There are actually 3 of them, but only the weaker two were revived. I hate to imagine what Eidolon, the strongest of the Riders, is like in power." "Anyways, we need to get inside for now. So follow me." Paula said, and led the two down the street to her house, the Polestar Preschool, and showed Ness and Artemis inside with her. 

Her parents welcomed Ness, "Ness, you must be on the case of the strange happenings as well, right?" Paula's dad asked him. "Yes, Mr. Polestar. It's happening in Onett. My new friend, Artemis here," Ness introduced Paula's parents to Artemis, who meowed back like a normal cat for the moment, "warned me of the happening starting to take place on this world. I don't suppose you know of the Serpent Riders, do you?" he asked them. Paula's mother spoke up, "Actually, I heard about them from Tamera's[author's note: a name for one of the kids in the preschool] father. He owns a ton of books on mythical creatures. He mentioned something about the Serpent Rider, I believe he was called Korax, or something." "Yes! Do you know where he lives?" "I have a copy of one of the book he has. He gave it to me since he heard Paula was a little interested in mythical creatures in her younger years, although I'm not sure if the Serpent Riders are in it, but feel free to look. It's on that bookself over there." she said. Artemis darted to the book case and found a book on myths and creatures from eons told. "This must be it." he said, causing Paula's dad to almost freak out. "Wow. The... the cat talks?" "Of course he does, Mr. Polestar. I said he was the one who warned be about all of this. My family seemed to understand him too." Then Ness's face showed a mix of sadness and anger. Paula noticed this and asked, "Ness, what's wrong?" Artemis answered for Ness, "He must be thinking of Giygas kidnapping his father." "He... he kidnapped Ness's dad?" Paula looked shocked. Ness replied, "Yes, and I came soon as possible, in fear it would happen to you as well." He looked at her sadly. "Well, I'm glad you care so much, sweety." she smiled at him, "But I have been training myself. You know that, since you saw me that one day a few years ago. Remember?" she shot Ness an odd smile. "Yeah, but still, I think you trained yourself to be stronger physically. It looked like you put a lot of power into that stray kick of yours." "The one I hit the Golem with? I told you I only meant to knock it away from you. But... maybe I am getting a bit stronger. I'm not sure." Artemis interrupted them, "Okay. I've found some info on the Serpent Riders, however a lot of it I've already read about." He searched deeper into the book. Suddenly, an image flashed in front of the cat's eyes. He saw the meteor in Onett, and the barrier surrounding Pokey's house. "Hmmm... We need to go back to Onett for now, though." he said. "Huh?" Ness and Paula were confused. "The meteor that started Ness's adventure two years ago... it might be to the key to the barrier around Pokey's house." "Ugh... more Centaurs, head creatures and archers with weird energy arrows, and possibly more Shadow Wizards too." "Yeah, The Serpent Riders are probably aware of the Wizard that we killed is down, and replaced it with stronger guards. We'll need to be careful up there." Artemis said. "We'd better go now. No time to rest. Too much is at stake right now." Ness said. Paula then called to her parents, "Goodbye Mom and Dad. Stay safe!" "We should be able to." her dad said reassuringly. 

The three left the house, and quickly hurried to the cave to Onett, but were stopped when a group of pig creatures with shotguns popped out of the bushes. "Oh great, they're back for more!" Paula growled, recognizing these creatures, and arming her Magic Fry Pan, which she neglected to take out earlier. Ness and Artemis got into fighting stances as well. Paula quickly armed PK Fire Beta, and shot it into a row of 7 of the Pig Creatures. They all caught on fire and burned to a crisp. "They're not that hard to beat, but their weapons can most likely hurt." she told the others. 9 other creatures remained. Ness used PK Special Beta. 6 creatures fell over dead, and the other 3 were heavily damaged. One took a shot at Artemis, but he was so small the shots sailed over his head. One shot at Ness, and he managed to avoid all the blast except one pellet which nailed him in the arm. It stung, but barely phased Ness. "I told you they like shooting you in the arm." Paula said in a "I told you so" voice. One took a shot at her, but she was much more agile, and was way out of the attack's range. Artemis shot another scatter beam into the group, finishing off the remaining pig creatures, and making the way into Onett clear... almost. "You won't get out of here that easily, humans!" a voice, half human/half-pig said to them. They turned to see a large armored tank, in the shape of a Scorpion, as it had a large tail on the rear of it. A pig creature was inside, at the controls of the tank. "Now they're driving heavy machinery." Artemis looked on with a slight sweatdrop. "And they sound... slightly human." Paula noticed the human part of the pig's voice. The tank's tail suddenly fired a missile at Artemis, who was in the center of the group. He jumped the missile itself, but the missile exploded, and the blast did some damage to Ness, Artemis and Paula, but Artemis was right on top of the explosion, thus taking the most damage of the three. Ness jumped at it and swung his bat, crunching in a side of the armored tank. Paula aimed PK Freeze Omega at the tail of the tank, and the blast almost destroyed it in one hit, but the rest of the tank wasn't as damaged as the tail. Artemis shot a beam towards the tank, but this one didn't split into seperate beams, but instead did a bit more damage to the tank, and part of the front was melting from the heat of the beam. Artemis then called to Ness and Paula, "Time to teach you double techinques!" "Huh?!" the two teens were confused. "Attack the tank together with your melee hits, or with PK both at the same time, or just combine your attacks together to make them stronger!" "Oh, I understand." Ness said. "Me too." Paula said, and the two then jumped at the tank, and at the same time, inflicted a double SMAAASH on the mech, instantly shattering it into bits of twisted and broken metal in the frenzy. However, the mutant pig inside had survived the explosion of his tank, and looked at Ness and Paula in rage. "You may have blown my tank to bits, but I will have the last laugh soon enough. Later on, chumpers!" he growled, and teleported away in a white flash of light, different from how some of Korax's minion's were teleporting.

"Well, I guess we can enter Onett now." Artemis said, "Be on your guard. More creatures will likely pop up in Onett, since we've been away from it for a while." Ness and Paula nodded, and stared at the cave in front of them, and they entered, Artemis first, Ness second and Paula last.

Little did they know what was still awaiting them in the near future...

[Man, that was a long chapter, but I had to end it somewhere, didn't I?]


	4. Chapter 2: Bitter Enemies Meet Again

_The War of the Omens: #2: EarthBound Stars  
Chapter 2: Mystic Barriers, Reptiles, and Snow_

Legal Stuff[blah blah...]: There really is none... except certain characters are copyrights of certain companys... blah blah... yawn. You get the picture.

This is a _seperate dimension, _or an AU of many games, plus some people in real life, and the real world as well, so if you're wondering why you see DKC characters in EarthBound, or something else like Real People in Hexen, etc, that's why. Also, this following info is very important to remember: Since the WOTO universe is an AU, the pasts of the chosen four are somewhat different from what they probably are in the original, but not drastically different, but let's just say most of them had fighting experience since before their adventure as a group.

Note: I do not have characters shout out their PK attacks in these stories. PK is from the mind, not a magic spell, so what's the point in chanting it out? It might make it seem cooler, but it's not any more good for anything but just that.

Now back in Onett; Ness, Paula and Artemis were quick to look for anything that would pose a threat, or anything familar to them as an enemy. It seemed quiet for the most part in the small clearing that around 20 some Centaurs had been inhabiting earlier, aside from the whistling, walking mushrooms that seemed to inhabit this area. They were once obstacles in Ness, Paula and their other friends' paths at times, but after Giygas' defeat, they went back to normal, so to speak, as they no longer attacked anyone. With this all noticed, the 3 started back up the path through the clearing, and past the house where Ness had gotten an Exit Mouse earlier. It seemed to be even darker than before.

"This is getting very weird, Ness." Paula started, "It seems even darker than I'd expect it to be." "Yeah, it does look darker than earlier. I guess it has to do with what's happening, but the question is, is it affecting the entire planet, or just parts of Eagleland?" Ness replied with a question of his own. Artemis was answerless but tried to answer them anyways, "I wish I knew exactly what those Riders are planning right now. It might help explain the condition of the skies, and other such things. Ness then noticed something slightly peculiar: some of the trees looked slightly unheathly. This was a bit average in Onett, but usually it didn't happen to so many trees at once. He however, didn't think it as much as a connection for now. After all, trees dying could be the result of anything odd, not just the influence of evil.

Their thoughts were stopped when Ness and Artemis heard a voice familar to him. "Well hello there, scumbags!" Ness growled and looked behind him, and saw 5 familar silhouettes: that of more Centaurs. "Go away. You stupid creatures think you can take us should look carefully. There's another one of us now, and if we could beat you guys with only two people, you're fish food to 3." Ness growled at then. "Take a closer look at us, then human." it said back. Paula and Artemis had turned to the Centaur now as well. The silhouettes walked from the shadows They looked like blue-skinned Centaurs, and they wore Gold plated armor, and a gold plated shield and sword. "So you got shiny new armor and such. What difference does it make?" Ness asked. "Much." one of them replied, holding his shield up. He threw it directly over Artemis' head in a gesture, and the bladed shield cut straight through the center of a trunk of one of the trees, and the shield returned to it. "Also, our armor is much stronger then the older Centaur armors. Korax and this other guy are pure geniuses to make such strong alloy from the gold of your planet." "Speaking of the planet, why are you monsters all here? What's Korax and D'Sparil's purpose?" "I guess we should tell you. It won't matter anyways, since this will be your final battle." one started. Another then said, "Our masters have discovered this planet possessed a great and powerful magic energy emitting from its core. Korax has tapped into the central "vein" of the magic power, the one that reaches the surface of the planet, which appearently gives life on this planet quite a boost. You are wondering why the skies are so dark? It happens on all the worlds the Serpent Riders land on, slowly, yet surely. Anyways, Korax plans to use the core's magic to resurrect the master Serpent Rider, Eidolon. Anyways, it's a lovely turn of events for your stupid little world, isn't it?" "No it isn't! So that's why the trees are starting to wither in this clearing, huh? Does he realize he could destroy this planet if he took too much of the energy from it?!" Ness asked one. "It doesn't matter. They do not care. They have a personal revenge to settle, and they need this planet to supply them with the energy for their purposes. You humans should feel honored to be chosen as involuntary helpers to the Serpent Riders plans." one Centaur growled at them. "Then... why revive Giygas?" Paula asked, "What his purpose in all of this?" "Well, he is the enemy of you people. He is one of the few that knows of some information about you. You two humans, and two others defeated him before, therefore Korax and D'Sparil regard you as the heroes of the planet, therefore he revived Giygas to hold you back from his plans until he is finished, and he divided his armies and some of us serve Giygas as well as the Serpent Riders." "It figures. Well, prehaps we can learn more later." Ness said, turning to one, "Sorry, but even with that new equipment, you don't stand much of a chance. We've fought much more dangerous creatures than you!" "We'll see. Gold Centaur Elite... ATTACK!!"

The five Centaurs charged at Ness and his two friends. Artemis shot a Spreader beam into the five Centaurs, but their shields blocked the entirety of the attack, and with almost no sign of damage on the shield itself. Artemis wouldn't let that bother him. He swiped his paw out with his strange invisible cutting attack again. The Centaur protected itself, for the most part, but the attack left a large cut in it's side where the shield could not protect it. One Centaur tossed his shield at Paula, but she ducked under it as it whizzed over her head and cut down a few bushes behind her. She took the open opportunity to use PK Freeze Gamma on the unprotected Centaur, placing it in a block of ice. The returning shield cut right through the ice, shattering the block, and the Centaur was totally destroyed, to put it blunt. "Lucky shot, human, but your luck cannot last forever!" another put up it's shield, pointed at Paula. A blue fireball shot out of it suddenly. Paula wasn't expecting this, and had to shield herself as the fireball impacted. The damage was small, but the shock affected Paula a bit more than the damage itself. "So they shoot energy from their shields now?" asked Ness, taking out his bat, and trying to bash a Centaur. It put up a shield and made a slash at him with its sword, but Ness drove his body aside, narrowly dodging the slash, and used the lag in its protection to bash the Centaur into a group of trees in the clearing. Another Centaur jumped at the small Artemis and made many attempts to slash the cat into pieces, but the cat's size and speed where greater than the Centaur's power, and he totally escaped the combo attack, and scratched the Centaur across it's face, leaving marks in its face through its helmet. "Artemis, just how dang sharp are those claws?!" Ness asked, bashing the retailating Centaur away from the cat as he asked this. "It depends on what I'm fighting." the cat answered, with a shrug. Paula looked to the sky and used PK Thunder Gamma. A bolt of Lighting slammed down on a nearby Centaur. It wasn't expecting an attack from directly above it, and failed to protect itself, and it was fried to a total crisp. The other two bolts were nowhere in the area though. Paula sighed at the waste of power. Ness now jumped at the remaining Centaur and screamed at it as he used PK Special Omega on them. Two of them had their shields totally incinerated, and the other Centaur was totally incinerated by the waves of energy. The remaining Centaurs looked on in shock, "Da**!! We've underestimated them again!!" one cursed at them. "Let's get the heck outta here!" the other one called. "Oh no you dont!!" Artemis was in mid-air, and used his spinning cannonball techinque again, and barreled straight through both weakened Centaurs. Needless to say, they were destroyed by it.

"Well, that was annoying, but at least we know to an extent what's going on now thanks to those overconfident idiots." Artemis sighed. "Yeah, but now we really gotta find the Serpent Riders! If they get their way with this planet, it'll die from lack of energy, plants firsts, then wildlife, then us. It's a slow way to die." Ness said, "Plus, I still have a bone to pick with Giygas." "We know!" Paula and Artemis replied, "You don't have to bring it up all the time." Artemis continued. "Sorry. He just gets to me." Ness replied. They continued northward towards the Library, fighting off a few Centaurs[of the normal variety], head creatures, and even a couple of Pig Cops, but when they got to the Burger Shop, they spotted two figures, each a foot taller than the average human. They looked familar, but seemed to be made out of metal, or some other form of steel. "Steel Golems?!" Ness looked at them confused. "Stupid human. We are made of iron, not steel." "My mistake. I assume we can't pass, right?" Artemis asked in a mocking voice. "Stone Golem are weak in comparison to us. Lets see you match our strength, mortals!" the other Iron Golem growled, and slid towards Artemis. Artemis jumped aside and slashed it across the side of it's midsection as it sailed past him, but it didn't do much damage, and barely left a mark on it. "Well, they seem to be made of iron." Artemis rubbed his stinging paws. The same Golem rushed towards Ness and swung at him, but Ness's earlier experience with a Stone Golem reminded him to duck under the fist, and he swung his bat in an uppercut, and sent the Golem reeling backwards, holding it's head, which was slightly turned to the side from the impact of the bat. The other Golem swung at Paula's head, but she shielded her head from the attack, and reduced the damage done to her, but was knocked onto her back from the force of the swing. It swung down and tried to crush her stomach in, but she rolled out of the way, and retalilated with a smash to it's midsection with the Magic Fry Pan, and then a strong kick to thrust it away from her. The Golems then got together in a team assault and both each launched a small sphere from the jewels that were in their foreheads, aimed at Ness and Paula. Both jumped out of the way, but the shots turned and slammed into both teens, knocking them away and doing some damage. "Drat! These must be tracking shots!" Paula growled, picking herself off the ground. Ness got off the ground himself, and used Lifeup Omega on him and Paula and Artemis, bringing them to full speed and healthy as ever. Artemis jumped at the recuperating Golems and used his Invisible cutting attack. It didn't destroy either Golem instantly, but there were deep cuts in the iron armor they were made out of, so Artemis assumed he did decent damage to both Golems. One Golem slid into Artemis. While it was unable to hit Artemis with it's follow-up punch due to his small size, he was sent flying into a nearby building, now shrugging off the effects of the Golem's slide. "Maybe we should try a combination attack again, like with the tank." Ness suggested to Paula. She simply nodded, knowing the plan already. Appearently close range telepathy was still possible, but not real long range, so they had discussed their attack telepathically. Ness took out his bat and Paula used PK Freeze Omega on it. Ness now charged in at the Golems and used a very powerful SMAAASH attack against the first golem, causing it to shatter into pieces of Iron, and the second golem was sent flying into the air, and out of sight, and it never seen again. Just then, pieces of Iron fell from above, telling the group the Golem had broken apart in mid-flight.

Without any more comments, they walked the rest of the way, back to Ness's home. They looked over at Pokey's house, which was surprisingly devoid of any guards, although the barrier was still pulsing as strong as ever. "Strange. They should've put more guards here by now. Something's fishy." Ness said, "But we'd better go and check in on Mom and Tracy." they walked in. Ness's mom and Tracy were in the front room, watching something on TV when they came back in." "Ness, dear! You're back! I see you found Paula. How are you doing?" Ness's mom greeted them, ending it with a question for Paula. "Well, my town's under the same fire Onett is, so you guys aren't alone." "I see. Did you guys figure out anything new about Giygo, or those other guys?" Ness's mom asked them. "Ma'am, we learned Korax, the second of the Serpent Riders, is behind all of this. He's trying to extract power from the core of the Earth, and use it to revive Eidolon, the eldest, and strongest of the Riders. The planet will start dying soon if we don't stop them." Artemis explained to her. "That's terrible... the plants die, and then everything else." she said replied, worried, "What about teleportation?" "Haven't tried it yet, but we're heading to the meteor on the hill in a while. Artemis thinks it's connected to the barrier at Pokey's house somehow." Ness replied to his mom. "Well, I want you all to be careful, and be strong!" his mom replied. Tracy looked over and smiled at them weakly. She still felt bad, not being able to help them in some way. She got up and walked up to Artemis and stroked his back. He purred in a kittenish way. "You guys be careful now." she told them, "Despite our antics, I worry about you Ness." she told him. She then looked at Paula. "Hey Paula, make sure he doesn't try to get too foolish in his heroics." Paula smiled back and laughed, "Don't worry. I understand how you feel." she looked at Ness. "Hey, I'm not that overconfident, am I?" he complained. "Well sometimes..." Paula started. "Okay okay... maybe sometimes." Ness reluctantly admitted, "But I do care for this world. I will do my best, okay little miss?" he asked Tracy. "Fine. Do what you think will help. Just be careful." his sister replied. The 3 heroes waved goodbye to Ness' mom and Tracy and left again. 

Outside, Pokey's yard was still vacant. "What is wrong with these guys? Where's the defense at? You mean, you'd think they'd care enough to protect their bases in case someone found a way in, right?" Ness asked to no one in general. "I'll bet once we come back, something will be here." Paula said, "I have a bad feeling." "Like seeing into the future?" Ness asked her. "Sorta. Not sure yet. I don't know what we'll meet if I'm right, so I can't really call it seeing the future." she replied. The trip up the cliffs the meteor was clear and devoid of enemies. Only a single head-creature had blocked their path the whole way, which was handled with relative ease. They had finally reached the meteorite. Ness and Artemis took notice of something near it. The corpse of the pink minotaur they fought earlier had been smashed over to this spot. "I must've hit it farther than I thought." Ness said, almost to himself. Artemis inspected the meteorite, but found nothing. However, he felt something else nearby. He saw a stray bush on the hill, the same one Ness and Pokey found Picky sleeping against the fated night they met Buzz Buzz and began the entire ordeal He dove into the bush, and came out with a strange looking object in his mouth. "Artemis, what's that?" asked Paula, taking the object out of his mouth. "It's some kind of scroll. It feels like it has some kind of magic energy going through it." Artemis answered. Ness examined the scroll, and he smiled, "This scroll emits energy similar to Pokey's barrier. It must be able to take the barrier down. We need to get back there immediately!" 

However their thoughts were interuptted when a gout of fire suddenly formed right in Artemis' face. "What the?!" he jumped around, but the fire was still on his face. Strangely enough, there was no pain or burning sensation, but it wouldn't get off his face. Ness and Paula heard a cackle, similar to a Shadow Wizard, but what they turned to see weren't Shadow Wizards. The were thin, whitish-yellow beings, and one of the had same same fire on his hands that Artemis had on his face. "Stop that!" Paula threw PK Freeze Gamma into it, freezing it in ice, causing the fire on Artemis' face to vanish. Three more of the beings laughed again. One darted over to the corpse of the minotaur, and he held his hands down, and they turned a blood red. Ness, Paula and Artemis's eyes went wide in shock. The corpse suddenly jumped up, and was no longer a corpse. The minotaur growled at them, and the other fire beings were laughing. "Well, look who's back." the minotaur growled, and looked at them, and his expression went sour when he saw Paula. "Well, look who decided to grace us with her presence." "Huh?" Paula was surprised it seemed to know her. She sure didn't know it. "Ah yes, you don't remember it, do you? Well, I'll make you don't ever remember!" it jumped out at her, but she darted aside. One of the fire beings raised it's hands, summoning fire that hooked onto Ness. "Gah! Get it off!!" He growled, the fire not inflicting damage, but blocking his vision, "What is this stuff?!" "The Arch-Vile's anomation attack doesn't seem painful at first, but if the fire stays on you TOO long, it'll explode, usually killing it's victim." the minotaur grinned malicously at them. Artemis growled, and attacked the offending Arch-Vile, causing it to lose focus on Ness. It was being hoarded back by Artemis, appearently unable to engage in melee combat with it's target. Ness jumped at the minotaur being and SMAAASHed it with his bat again, but the creature defended himself, halvening the attack's effectiveness. Paula quickly bombarded a nearby Arch-Vile with PK Freeze Omega. It screamed and fell into many pieces. Paula also saw the frozen Arch-Vile in the ice block next to her, and smashed the cube and the Arch-Vile into pieces. One Arch-Vile however resurrected it's ally as quickly as it fell. They were all laughing at them. Ness growled, "Enough of this!" and used PK Special Omega on the entire group of enemies. The minotaur, and one of the Arch-Viles fell to the massive waves, but one Arch-Vile actually managed to avoid the attack. "Drat!" Ness growled, lunging at the Arch-Vile, but it quickly ran to the corpses of it's allies and resurrected the other 3 Arch-Viles with one hand gesture. "Man, we must have to kill all of them at once, so they can't resurrect each other. I already hate these things!" Paula growled, _But what was that other thing talking about. It seemed to know who I was, and I've never seen anything like him. Maybe he was an old foe in another form._ Artemis shouted out "Slicer Beam!" and used his cutting attack on the Arch-Viles, only this one seemed to do more damage, and 2 of them were cut right in half. The other two started simultaneously attacking Artemis with fire. Ness and Paula combined PK Freeze Gamma with PK Special Gamma and launched the merged attack at the two attacking spirits of fire. Both were overwhelmed by it and broke apart like their other allies.

"We'd better get out of here, before more of them come!" Paula shouted. They quickly darted down the cliffs and towards Pokey's house. They saw the barrier around his house in sight. "There it is! The scroll's reacting to it!" Ness said cheerfully. The barrier flickered the closer they got to it, and as they came within a few feet of it, it totally vanished. "We did it!! Yeah!!" he cried cheerfully. However, again their celebration was cut short as a green mass of energy formed in front of them, becoming something twice the height of a normal person. It was almost as big as the Maulotaur that Ness and Artemis fought at town hall, but it was nothing like the Maulotaur from its looks. "Ick, I guess you were right about surprising us, Paula. This thing's as big as the Maulotaur that Artemis and I fought earlier. But what kind of creature is this?" They carefully looked at it. It looked grayish in color, had a large frame. It's left leg had no skin on it, exposing metal and a few wires. It's right hand was replaced with a strange metal gun of some type, and it had red, bloodshot eyes, and an angered expression molded on its face. "That thing looks like he's never cheery." Artemis looked at it with a strange expression. "Intruders must be destroyed!!" it growled, and aimed it's gun at them, shooting a small rocket towards them. The three scattered, and dodged both the rocket and it's blast, but it shot another at Ness, who barely threw himself to the side, and it fired anoted rocket. Ness jumped it, but was hit by the blast and thrown to the ground hard. "Ouch! This thing shoots missiles in threes!" Ness picked up on its attack pattern. Artemis used the Slicer Beam and cut it across the arm, trying to sever the missile gun from it. It raised its gun to fire at him, and the beam missed, but Artemis was hit dead on with a missile, and blasted back into a tree, scorch marks on his side. "Ouch! Those things also hurt like heck! Watch out for them!" Ness used Lifeup Gamma and healed Artemis's injury completely. Paula used PK Freeze Omega on the offending arm, freezing it in ice. It growled, and stomped towards her. She jumped back from a massive left hook it made at her, but it then stomped the ground with its huge foot, knocking her to the ground. It walked up and picked up Paula, and then tossed her into Ness, knocking him down, but breaking her fall. "Ack! I hate tossing attacks!" Ness growled as Paula got off him. "Same here." she rubbed her head, a bit dizzy. Ness darted at the big creature, but it stomped the ground, and Ness was now in the same situation. The creature picked him up, and tossed him head first into Paula and Artemis, knocking the wind out of all of them. "Ouchies!" Ness growled, noticing the other's were barely conscious after that attack, and tried to get up, but the missile launcher on it's arm had unthawed, and it pointed the gun at them, and said, "Time to terminate you!"

However, before it could shoot, the sound of something cutting through heavy metal was heard. The creature looked at its gun, and watched in rage as it fell to the ground with a clatter, and gaped of the stump of what was left of its arm. "Hey! Pick on someone who's not so helpless!" a voice growled. "Helpless my butt!" Artemis growled, as Ness, Paula and him had gotten off the ground. The creature and them saw the owner of the voice. He was a somewhat thin man, about 5'10", wearing brown pants, of a odd style, and he only had a holder over his upper body, which held a strange looking bow in it. He also held a long staff, with a polearm blade on the end of it. Artemis also noticed his ears were pointy, much like elves were in legends. "You must also be terminated!" it growled and swung itself at he man, but he used his staff and pole-vaulted over the creature's head, and as he landed, he quickly turned around and slashed into it with many motions. The man landed, and the creature began to spark and emit electricity. The man jumped over to Ness, Artemis and Paula, just before the creature exploded into a red cloud of flame, leaving only it's metal feet behind.

The man looked at them, "I see you're on this case as well." his voice sounded slightly british, but the others shrugged it off. "Hey... um... thanks for helping us there, but we're not exactly helpless." Artemis said. "Forgive me. I meant that towards him as a figure of speech. You people are actually quite strong. A lot of Korax's minions are already going down at your hands." "You know of Korax?" asked Ness. "I've heard of him, but... I've met D'Sparil in person." the man said. "What?! You've met D'Sparil?" Paula was freaked out at this. "No, I'm not a minion of his. I was once the one who destroyed the bast***." he said with a slight curse, "D'Sparil practically destroyed my world, and I learned he was alive after a few hundred years had passed." "Wait... you're the one who killed him. The Heretic?" asked Artemis, recalling mention of the hero who destroyed D'Sparil in the book he had read a while back. "Yes, I was called the Heretic on my world. My name is actually Corvus, though. I wish to help you. As you may have figured out, he is up to something big, and I wish to put him out once and for all, and perhaps Korax as well, although... I've never seen Korax myself." "Korax is draining the energy of the Earth right from its core. He wishes to revive Eidolon, the elder Serpent Rider with it, but he's also going to cause the planet to die if he keeps it up. That's one reason we're trying to stop him." Artemis explained. "The other, being he revived an old enemy of ours, known as Giygas." Ness continued. "Giygas? Hmm... from what I remember while in the Outer Worlds, the name of Giygas was mentioned in a couple of the worlds I was on, but I never considered learning about him, since he wasn't a Rider. They were the only ones I was concerned with while stranded in those cursed Outer Worlds." Corvus replied. "Anyways, thank you... for your help." Ness replied, offering his hand to Corvus. Corvus shook his hand, "Glad to be of help. I just hope we won't be the only ones on this journey." "We're not planning on it either. We have two other friends we have to meet at the least, probably more." Paula said to him. "Well, we should push on then." Corvus suggested, "We may not have long before the planet starts to wither up."

The four heroes walked up to Pokey's door and opened it somewhat slowly. The front room appeared to be totally vacant. This had Ness, Paula and Artemis confused. "Hmmm..." Corvus said, and looked up at the ceiling, "Something's on the upper floor." he then said. The four slow sneaked up the steps, trying to get a glimpse at what was in Pokey's room. They saw a familiar machine, the Spider Mech! Pokey was in the contraption, and a being in a red robe was speaking with him, carrying a three prong staff in his hand. Corvus growled. "That's D'Sparil... but who's talking with him?" Corvus whispered to the others. "My former friend and neighbor, Pokey. He turned on me early in my first adventure. Figures he'd join D'Sparil if Giygas is in on it as well." Ness said. They quieted down, and tried to listen on their conversation. "Yes, go reanimate my old..." was all they heard, coming out of D'Sparil's mouth, and Pokey was too far for them to hear a thing. They then saw Pokey walk up to a short portal. "A world ripple..." Corvus said. "Just as I suspected..." Artemis mused, "There is a gate here." Pokey had disappeared through it. They then decided to rush in and confront D'Sparil, to find out what was going on, but as they got near D'Sparil seemed to sense them. "Well, welcome back... Corvus. I see you've made allies with the enemies of Giygas." D'Sparil turned to the group, his red eyes the only thing they could see under the robe he wore." "Nice to see you too, D'Sparil." Corvus growled sarcastically. "Don't be so mad, Corvus. We don't plan on directly destroying this planet. I have met a lot of interesting people in my first days on this planet. Humans are weird creatures. Some are also cocky and like to pick fights. I haven't killed any humans as of yet, and I don't plan to just yet, if I can avoid it." D'Sparil then narrowed his eyes at Corvus, "But you Corvus... you are not fully human. You are also my mortal enemy." he pointed his staff at Corvus, but then made it vanish into nothing, "But now is not the time for our rematch. That will come later. Korax sent me to hail you and anyone else with you. I knew it was a matter of time before the CyberDemon guardian would fall to you." he continued. "CyberDemon?" asked Ness. "The large creature you just fought was the CyberDemon. I witnessed the battle. And even without Corvus's intervention, I knew it would most likely be defeated anyways." D'Sparil replied, "Now... if you excuse me. I must return to my... "home", but don't fret. Korax asked that I leave you a bit of a hint. Follow me, if you're brave enough!" D'Sparil cackled and dashed into the world ripple. Ness, Paula, Corvus and Artemis walked near the ripple, and then saw it fluctuate a little, and the color changed slightly. Through it, they could barely see the landscape of a snow filled plain. Paula then recognized the place. "Ness! D'Sparil's configured the portal to take us to Winters. I don't know why, though." "Artemis examined it, "Hmmm... perhaps Korax wants us to regroup, so he can play around with us or something." "Well, we have to take the gate, or we can't leave here. Teleportation is still blocked out." Ness replied with a slight sigh of sadness. With those words, they slowly stepped up to the ripple. Ness walked in first, then Paula, then Corvus and then finally Artemis...

**********

The four heroes walked out of the endpoint ripple and found themselves in, sure enough, Winters. In fact, they were right outside the Snow Wood Boarding School. It was then Paula remember what Dr. Andonuts said about Jeff headed here. "Ness, we better go into the school. Maybe we'll find Jeff here." "Good idea." Ness said, and then they took a good look at the school. It had definitely looked like a raid had taken place. Windows were broken, the gate was in pieces, the front doors were broken down, and had claw marks in them, and such. They slowly walked into the school, noticing furniture was all shredded up and in pieces as well. The door to Maxwell Labs' room was torn down. They went in there first, and saw a bookcase moved to the side, revealing a steel door. "Hmm... I've never seen this before. It must be a secret lab or something." Ness said, remember his last trip to the school a year ago. Ness tried to turn the door handle but it was stuck. He then put his ear to the door. He picked up muffled sounds from behind it. He then called through the door, "HEY! Is anyone behind this door?!?!"

***********

"HEY! Is anyone behind this door?!?!" was what Jeff Andonuts suddenly heard. He had rushed quickly up to the school after a report of a raid on the Boarding School had been announced. In the hidden basement room with him were Tony, and a few of the other Students. Maxwell was nowhere in sight. What was strange, though, was he had an ally with him. He was about Jeff's height, was a bit on the plump side, looked like a purplish crocodile creature, wore an hard army hat on his head, and carried an old fashioned pirate's cannon in his hand. "Hey Jeff, do you know who that is? It better not be any more of those blasted winged annoyances we saw earlier."  
"I'll go check it, Klump. Stay here and watch the students in case something happens." Jeff replied.  
"Alrighty then." Klump replied.  
"Who is this?!?!" Jeff yelled through the door.  
"Jeff?! Thank goodness your okay!!" he heard another voice.  
"Ness?! Paula?! Is that you?!"  
"Yes! Please let us in!!" Ness yelled back to him.  
"Okay!! Hold on!!" Jeff yelled, and unsealed the door. He opened the door and greeted his old friends.  
"Ness, Paula. Glad to see you. What's up?" Jeff asked.  
"Jeff, we need your help. We've been pulled into another worldwide adventure..." Paula started. They told the story about all that had happened to them, and in the process, introduced Artemis and Corvus to Jeff[author's note: I usually won't get into too much detail with introductions from this point on, since you know the drill]. "Well, I guess that means the raids weren't a coincidence. Darnit! A large group of winged creatures, some ruddy-colored, some blue, rushed into Snow Wood and attacked it. They were behind the raid. They must've have been trying to destroy me, but I was down at my dad's lab at the time. They took Maxwell though, and a couple of other students and teachers, and I don't know where they've been taken. However, I met another ally on my way here." Jeff took them downstairs, and introduced them to Klump. "Klump was in charge of a small army, trying to stop our enemies. We had to fight a few of those winged creatures. We bolted ourselves in here to take refuge from them for a while, but since your here, we might as well join with you, so we all have a better chance." Jeff inquired. "Welcome back, old friend." Ness smirked at his genius friend. "Yeah, flatter me all you want." he smirked back, "But we really should return to my Dad's lab. Perhaps we can find out more from him now." Jeff suggested. "Then we head back down south, Jeffy-boy!" Klump chuckled heartily. They went and bid the kids and Tony goodbye and they shut the door tightly behind them.

Outside, they proceeded southward towards the shores of the infamous Lake Tess. As they went through a few trees, they heard a strange cackled. "Ack! Some of those winged beings!" Jeff cried out as 3 small, winged beings bursted out of a pine tree and swooped at the group. They all scattered out of the way and dodged the assault, but one of the creatures instantly turned around and began shooting pellets of ice towards Corvus. Corvus unsheathed his staff and batted the ice shards out of his way and jumped up into the air slashed right through the offending creature, slicing it cleanly in two. Paula aimed PK Fire Gamma at the remaining to creatures. They were roasted into ashes. "They're pretty weak though, I must say." Ness said from his observation of the attack. "Yeah, but they attack in numbers, be careful." Jeff warned. They dashed the rest of the way to the lake, avoiding more encounters with the winged creatures. At Lake Tess, they meet up with the Tessie Watching club, who were still brave enough to be out with all the monsters around. However, Tessie, nor Bubble Monkey were in their sight. "Where is Bubble Monkey? He was around earlier. He took me up here!" Jeff cried. He heard familiar chatter in the woods to his west, and found Bubble Monkey, hiding. "Bubble Monkey?!" the asked it. Bubble Monkey looked at Jeff and spoke in Monkey talk, which translated to: "(Jeff, Tessie's in danger! Some other monster's living in the lake!)" "Another monster?" Ness wondered. "(Some bony thing, it looked like two big heads, except only bones!)" the monkey chattered, frighteningly. Suddenly, a rumble was heard from the water. Two bony heads on tall neck rose from the waters of the Lake. "(AAAHHH!!! That's the monster!!)" Bubble Monkey freaked out and hid behind a tree.

The six heroes walked up to the shore and looked at the large heads. At closer examination, Jeff identified something about them, "Their heads are the shape of a Viper! What kind of creature is this?!" One of the long Viper heads spewed a column of flame at Corvus and Jeff, who barely jumped away. The other one, breathed a stream of fire right in Klump's face. However, Klump only looked slightly black and not much hurt at all, and coughed a little. "Okay, this bloody thing's going down!!" he said, acting just a bit Australian for a second, and pulled out his hand-cannon, and shot what at first were small cannon pellets, which then surprisingly grew to the size of cannonballs seen on most pirate ships. 5 of the 7 shots impacted with the offending head, and it was knocked into the water. The other head bit down at Paula, but she reacted by using PK Freeze Omega on head quickly. Ness jumped in and scored a home-run hit on the head, shattering the block of ice, and the long head into bits. The other head rose back out, and breathed more fire at the group, but they had been more prepared and jumped out of the way, where Jeff pulled out his trusty Gaia Beam and shot a big blast into the head, causing it to shatter similar to the other head, and the monster had been vanquished.

Jeff pulled Bubble Monkey out of his hiding place. "It's over. We defeated the monster. Is Tessie okay?" Jeff asked it. "(Yes, she hid in the water, deep below the waves, but I can sense her returning towards the surface. We will take you to the South Shore, if you want.)" it replied in monkey talk. "Thanks, old friend." Jeff said. In a matter of seconds, Tessie reemerged from the Lake waters, and the group, lead by Bubble Monkey, got on her back, and Tessie transported them across the lake. They got off at the South Shore, and bid the monkey and the dinosaur goodbye, and continued on their path to Dr. Andonuts' lab, and went by Brick Roads old dungeon, and into the old cave of the Rainy Circle. Inside the cave, the normal mushroom inhabitants and crocodiles, now peaceful, for the moment, were roaming around the cave in their daily lives, not hindering Ness or the rest of their group. However, when they got into the big part of the cave with the hope, it was empty for the most part. "Something feels wrong here..." Corvus muttered, "I feel a strong source of power around here somewhere." They decided to take a look at Rainy Circle for a moment, and they got a big shock. Behind the circle was another world ripple, just waiting there, opened and unguarded. Ness was going to step outside, but Corvus stopped him. "No. Not yet. Something's wrong here. We should go to your friend's lab before we go here." he warned. "Oh, right! I got sidetracked, but we do need to come back here a bit later." Ness said. They quickly rushed out of the cave, and past Stonehenge. They entered Dr. Andonuts lab. 

The doctor was sitting at a nearby table, looking at a machine, and some parts on the table. He looked up and saw Jeff, and greeted everyone, "Hello my boy! You're back. And Ness and Paula, and some other new people are with you too. What did you find out about the raid?" Dr. Andonuts asked. "Well, it goes like this, Dad..." Jeff and the group told the long story about Korax's plans to revive Eidolon, and how Giygas had been resurrected to prevent Jeff and his friends from interfering. "Well, I hope you all know what your all doing. This sound more serious than last time. Too bad I have nothing much I can help you with right now. The prototype Kangaroo Mech I'm making is the only remote thing, and it's quite the prototype right now. I have something that can help you just a bit, but it may not be very effective. He went into the back, and came out with a strange looking lens of some kind. "Here. This might help you. It is capable of reading out the amount of health something has, including yourselves. I decided to use the system known as HP, or Hit Points, a detailed number of a creatures health. If it hits 0, the target is dead or unconscious, etc. You can use this by tapping the lens once and looking through it. It can scan anything in sight, but it may not be able to scan all things life power. The creatures has to be an organic creature for it to work." the doctor explained. "Meaning it won't work on things like Golems, and probably even Starmen." Jeff thought it over, "But it probably will help. Thanks for the help." "Don't thank me... yet. Next time you come back, I might have something new up my sleeve." Dr. Andonuts ended with a slight hearty chuckle. "Now, be careful, you all. I couldn't bare it if some happened to any of you, even if I don't know some of you well yet." "Thanks for the help, Doc." Klump said, "Later." "Wait. Use the revitalizing machine before you go, just in case." Dr. Andonuts stopped them. "Oh, thanks dad!" Jeff smacked his forehead, as they all went up and one by one, used the revitalization machine to get to full health. 

After they were done, they set back out to the world ripple at Rainy Circle. However, when they got there, a familiar face, at least to Ness and Artemis was waiting there. The Maulotaur was back. "Ah, nice to see you all again. It's been a while, hasn't it?" the bull creature taunted. "You must want to continue your little match, don't you?" Artemis snarled at it. "Correct, flea-brain. This time, I won't make it so easy on you." Corvus was also astonished. _I should've guess some of the Maulotaurs would be used in this little plan of theirs._ Everyone got into a fighting stance, and prepared for the attack at hand. The Maulotaur dashed forward towards Ness, intent on dispatching the boy once and for all. Jeff, however, had his own opinion, and had prepared a big bottle rocket and shot it in the Maulotaur's face. The repulsion of the rocket sent the Maulotaur goring into a stray mountain. Jeff then decided to test the HP monitor, and placed in in the left lens of his glass, but not before tapping it to activate it. A slight yellowish tint appeared through the lens, but Jeff saw the number "1256" and a little arrow pointing to the Maulotaur, and Ness had a "924" reading. He looked at everyone else, just to see. Paula registered a "551", Corvus had a "1033", Klump had a "844", Artemis had a "433" and looking at his own hand, he got a "685". "Wow... so this the amount of damage we can all take? Dad you are a pure genius! I would've never thought of something this advanced, even if you only think of it as a small toy." he said, mostly to himself, "Ness, that thing has about 1200 some HP left. Better use a strong attack!" Ness summoned PK Special Gamma and threw it into the Maulotaur's face. Jeff saw the numbers on the Maulotaur reduce to a "714". "Ness, that PK Special attack is strong. It did around 540 damage to it!" "Well, Omega must do more then, but I'm gonna save the energy." "What are you whackos blabbing about?!" growled the Maulotaur, charging at Jeff to shut him up. Jeff shot the Maulotaur with his Gaia Beam, be was hit by the charge and went flying, almost into the side of a small cliff. He checked his life level. A "399" appeared. "Wow, this guy can also do a decent shred of damage." Jeff said, picking himself up. Artemis jumped at the Maulotaur and used the Slicer Beam. The Maulotaur growled and backed away in agony and apparent defeat, "You've managed to defeat me... but you will not... last against Korax." the bull creature then collapsed to the ground, dead and out.

Everyone else who hadn't gotten to attack seem amazed with the monitor. Jeff's dad was in fact a genius. This device could turn things around for them in certain situations. However, the gleaming world ripple lied up ahead. "Hmmm... where does this ripple take us?" Jeff said as he examined it. He couldn't see anything through it, and it was really foggy with the ripple itself. "Jeff, we gotta go in to find out." Artemis replied. Apparently Korax wasn't going to give them anymore clues. The real game had began. And strangely enough, everyone observing the portal knew this. Carefully they all walked closer, wondering just where the world ripple would take them...

[Well, you're probably wondering about the HP monitor thingy. Let's just say Dr. Andonuts is a true genius :D I will type more later on. I'm tired. Writing mega-sized chapters takes a lot out of me. If we're lucky, I can get the third mega-chapter done before I sack out, but I doubt it. Byeies for now.]


	5. Chapter 3: The Four Elements

_The War of the Omens: #2: EarthBound Stars  
Chapter 3: Lava, Fat Pigs and Horses_

Legal Stuff[blah blah...]: There really is none... except certain characters are copyrights of certain companys... blah blah... yawn. You get the picture.

This is a _seperate dimension, _or an AU of many games, plus some people in real life, and the real world as well, so if you're wondering why you see DKC characters in EarthBound, or something else like Real People in Hexen, etc, that's why. Also, this following info is very important to remember: Since the WOTO universe is an AU, the pasts of the chosen four are somewhat different from what they probably are in the original, but not drastically different, but let's just say most of them had fighting experience since before their adventure as a group.

Note: I do not have characters shout out their PK attacks in these stories. PK is from the mind, not a magic spell, so what's the point in chanting it out? It might make it seem cooler, but it's not any more good for anything but just that.

Within a small, desolate-looking area outside of a large stone wall, the world ripple from the Rainy Circle suddenly opened, and Ness, then Paula, then Jeff, then Artemis, then Corvus, and finally Klump walked through it and onto the grassless ground. The portal then shrunk down to the size of a baseball once they got all through. Everyone took a good look at their surroundings. It was quiet, and devoid of life. A little too devoid of life to them. Corvus though, had a wide eyed expression. _The Crater in Hell's Maw? Why this accursed place?! I thought Hell's Maw was destroyed. _"Everyone listen closely!" he called to the others, getting their attention. "What's wrong Corvus?" asked Jeff. "I recognized this place. I've been here before. We're in some kind of middle world. It's a long story, but to make it short, I was through here when I went after D'Sparil the first time. I'm not sure about it, but there might be something very dangerous around here somewhere, so please keep your guard up, and follow me." "So you know how to get through this particular world?" Paula asked, "I should... if it hasn't changed a lot." Corvus muttered, looking at the small area for any changes. An opened wall was still opened up from the last time the Sidhe had come through here, but a steel door with two statues, carrying green spheres, was closes. _Drat! They changed the door. We gotta go back into that horrid cave. To find the key, I bet. _"Guys, be careful, and follow me." he said.

Corvus led the group into the opened up portion of the wall, which contained a few wide steps, or what at least seemed like steps to the others. At the base of these stair-like ledges was a large cave-like room with circular column like walls, seemingly holding the cave up. Corvus noticed upon entry the entire place was void of enemy life. He remembered too well the last time he came into this place, as there had been monsters everywhere, and he had to use a good deal of his weapons on that ordeal to survive. That was before he found his Tome of Power near the end of his old journey. Corvus led the group carefully around a long and wide wall, which he figured would reveal a large pool of fire ahead. He was not wrong when he got a glimpse of it. _Same lava pit as before._ he looked over a saw a green-plated symbol on the other side. _Same location of the key, except last time it also was a yellow key. D'Sparil's playing some kind of personal game with me. This doesn't feel right._ He looked back at everyone else. "Stay here. I'm going to use a technique I haven't used in a while." "Wait!" Paula cried, "Let me try and help first!" she aimed PK Freeze Omega and shot it into the fire. The fire suddenly froze into solid ice. Corvus sweatdropped, "Wow... I wish I could do that with my magic, but I know no ice magic whatsoever." "It isn't permanent. I just made a thick sheet of ice over it, so you better hurry." Paula warned him. "Right. Thanks." Corvus jumped down, and slipped a bit, but regained his composture. He could feel the heat coming up through the ice already. "This stuff's hotter than I thought!" he jumped up a bit, and running, slipping and sliding across the ice to the island. He grabbed the key, and saw something bad: there had been once a teleporter on the island that would've taken him back to the cave, but apparently D'Sparil had removed it in anticipation of Corvus's arrival. _I'm gonna have to polevault out of here."_ Corvus then yelled, "Clear the way! I'm going to polevault out of there." Everyone quickly took the warning and moved aside. Corvus gather his composture, and ran quickly along the melting ice, planting the staff down, and barely getting a good vault and flew up, over, and out of the pit, and was barely able to land on his feet. Corvus then rubbed one of his feet. "Hot hot hot!! D'Sparil made the lava hotter than last time!" Corvus however, had the green key, so he quickly led everyone else back outside, but they were greeted by a small surprise, and a somewhat dangerous yet welcome one for Ness, Paula and Jeff after all the other monsters they had faced so far. Two Ghost of Starmen and a Starman Deluxe where standing right outside the cave, waiting for them. "So, Giygas is take matters into his own hands now, eh?" Ness said. "Destroy them! *click*" The Deluxe ordered his underlings. "Yep, same old glitched language as always." Jeff inquired. "Too much of reminder of the old days." Paula mused. "Hey! I liked the old days!" Ness protested. "Yes, but those were very dangerous days too, Ness." Jeff replied. "Still, I personally enjoyed that adventure." Ness replied. "You think we didn't? We just weren't so eagar to fight back then." Paula sighed at Ness's old thoughts of the old day. "Can we destroy you *click* before we get old from the *whirrr* boredom?!" the Deluxe growled. "Fine, whatever." Ness growled and shot PK Special Omega at the Starmen. The two Ghosts took heavy damage, but Ness forgot about the Starman Deluxe using a deflective PK power shield. Ness was lucky the repelled blast barely missed him. "Nice memory, hot shot." Paula almost scolded him. "Sorry. This is the only other Starman of this type we've ever fought. I don't remember all the nooks about them." Ness meekly apologized. Klump aimed his cannon at a Ghost of Starman, and prompty blasted its head off with a cannonball attack. Jeff blasted the Starman Deluxe with a Big Bottle Rocket, reeling it back. Paula used PK Shield Omega on the entire group, and just in the nick of time. The remaining Ghost of Starman had casted PK Starstorm Alpha. The shield around the group repelled it back, destroying the Ghost. The Starmen Deluxe shot a beam at Klump, which Klump blocked with his helmet. _What a way to use my head._ He thought to himself. Artemis used his Slicer Beam and cut the Starman Deluxe a large gash in its shiny armor. Corvus finished it off by using and spinning roundhouse with his staff on the end, cutting the Starman into two seperate halves, wires exposed.

The group quickly rushed to the green door, hoping no other Starmen would arrive there. Corvus unlocked and opened the steel door, and they went inside, into another cave with more columns of rock, and small lava pits, but thankfully none that directly barred their way. However, Ness spotted an item on a ledge in a nearby lava pit. "Paula, could you freeze that lava pit. There's something on that small island." Ness pointed out the object. "Okay. One frozen lava patch coming up." Paula aimed PK Freeze Omega and formed a thick sheet of ice over the lava. Ness was about to jump down, but Paula pushed by him, "But I'm getting the item too." she jumped down, not wasting anytime to get heatstroke, and very quickly grabbed the item, ran back and made a impressive jump back up to where the others were. "Ok. Thanks." Ness sweatdropped. _Why didn't I suggest her getting the key to Corvus earlier. _He smirked. _I would've had hurt you if you did. _Paula replied through telepathy. Ness sweatdropped again and smiled nervously at her. Paula replied, "Ness, we have to move now. We'll talk later." "Alright, alright!" Ness said, following Corvus, who was a bit of a distance away from him now. Corvus had now opened a smaller door with a three prong symbol on it. Behind it was another world ripple. "Welcome, Pig's Butt!" the portal seemed to call to them. "Pokey?!" Ness immediately recognized the voice. "Well, it seems your last-class friends and you have found the way to my temporary lair. Come forth... and meet your doom if you dare." Pokey's voice taunted to them from the other side of the portal. "Pokey, I will stop you. Prepare for battle!" Ness took his bat out and charged into the ripple after him, and the others quickly followed.

*******

The world ripple dumped Ness and his restless group in a cold, icy room in the shape of a six-point star. From the look of the surroundings, the place had been made from solid ice. Ness shivered, "C.. cold. Where... are we?" Corvus tried to make sense of it. Something seemed familiar to him about this place. "Hah hah hah!! Come and get me turkeyheads!" Pokey's voice echoed throughout the room. "Pokey?! Where are you?!" Ness clenched his shivering fists and snarled, hoping he could rid himself and his friends of Pokey as soon as humanly possible. Corvus suddenly called, "It can't be! This place flooded years ago when I defeated D'Sparil! This... this is his old arena, but it's frozen over, somehow!" "This was D'Sparil's dome?" asked Artemis, remembering mention of D'Sparil living in a domed city while he ruled over Parthoris. "Yes. Pokey's found it and is using it for his hiding spot. Follow me!" Corvus led to group to a glittering red cube in a corner of the room with a blue magic energy rising from it. "This should take us to the main arena." he said, walking through it. The others slowly followed in, one by one.

On the other side, Corvus entered a wide, open and vast area. He recollected his old memories of the battle with D'Sparil...

~Flashback~

The great and hulking Chaos Serpent, which had been D'Sparil's mount, had just fallen to the ground in pieces. D'Sparil had suddenly vanished as the mount fall into its death throes. D'Sparil soon rerose from a lone robe on the ground. Their battle was long and tiring, D'Sparil shooting blue bolts of electrical magic energy. Both Corvus and D'Sparil had traded massive blows. Suddenly D'Sparil appeared in front of Corvus and had blindsided him with a bolt, knocking Corvus on his rear. D'Sparil advanced on the weakened Corvus. "A valient effort, Corvus. You did so well, and yet so poorly." he pointed his staff at Corvus, about to lay the finishing blow. Corvus had one last bit of Salvation, and suddenly whipped out an old weapon of his, the Pheonix Rod, and threw a massive blast of energy, fueled by the opression of Parthoris. D'Sparil was unable to defend himself and was set ablaze. "AAAAAHHHH!!! CURSE YOU CORVUS!!!" he growled as energy rended him to bits. He muttered a final, untranlatable phrase, which would later set part of the elf's fate into motion...

~End Flashback~

_The curse is over, and I survived the Outer Worlds, but why is his lair still intact? The dome broke open the second I stepped through the old portal out of here and into the Outer Worlds. _The others had come through the portal now, and they were all now looking for some kind of sign of Pokey's presence. "Pokey!! Come out, wherever you are!!" Ness called. "Patience, Pig's butt. I'm coming." Pokey was heard, as the Spider Mech suddenly materialized in front of them all. Pokey smiled the way he always did in a situation like this. He looked at the growing group of friends. "Six of you, eh? Where's the prince?" he asked, referring to their friend Poo, who they had not met yet. "Not here... yet." Ness growled, pointing his bat at Pokey. "I'm crushed Ness. I'd hope you'd not be so eager to die. My mech has been enhanced by Giygas, and Korax isn't half bad either, nor is D'Sparil. Reanimating his old lair for my own use has its purposes." Corvus had suddenly remembered back in Pokey's house when he, Artemis, Ness and Paula were hiding on the steps. He remembered D'Sparil mention Pokey reanimating something of his, but wasn't able to recall what it was, until now. Corvus suddenly snapped out of his memories, as the battle had just started with Jeff pulling out one of his last multi-bottle rockets, and blasting Pokey with a direct hit, blowing the mech into a wall. Pokey regained his composture. "You still have those stupid rockets, eh kid?" Pokey charged at Jeff and sent him flying across the arena, landing on his back. Jeff painfully got back up. Pokey shot a missile at the group of other friends, causing them all to scatter. Corvus unsheathed the bow on his back, and took an arrow and aimed it. The arrow suddenly lit aflame. Pokey took notice of this and charged at the elf, but Artemis jumped up and landed on the glass dome of Pokey's mech, throwing his aim off. "Get off my viewport you stupid feline!" a tentacle from the mech lashed out and tried to slap Artemis off, but Artemis jumped off anyways. Corvus had then shot the flaming arrow at Pokey. It hit the mech directly, and erupted into a flame in the shape of a Pheonix. The mech had also caught fire. Pokey was angry now, and lashed a quick tentacle and slapped Corvus to the ground, knocking the wind out of him. Ness and Paula again combined PK attacks, this time Flash Omega with Fire Omega, creating a large flare attack. The flare slammed into Pokey, blasting him clear through a wall nearby. The mech slowly got up, smoking and sparking. Pokey glared at Ness and Paula with rage in his eyes, and keyed something in on the mech. "Let's see you handle this!" a laser cannon formed, and began chugging out rapid fire laser blasts at Ness and Paula at random. Both of them began frantically running around trying to avoid the blasts. Klump took this as a perfect opportunity and climbed a nearby wall, and positioned himself right above the mech. The mech was still trying to hit Ness and Paula with laser fire, and Klump jumped down like a reptilian cannonball and crashed right through the dome of Pokey's mech. His helmet hit a button on the control deck. "NO!! Not that button!!" Pokey screamed in fright. Klump feared the worse and got himself loose as quick as possible, and scampered back to the others. They saw electricity form around the mech. This wasn't normal electricity, though. It was a strange like of magic energy. Corvus went wide-eyed again, "He's going to tear open a world ripple on top of himself!! Run!! Get behind something now!!" they all scampered behind a corner, the best protection they had. Suddenly, a large mass of unstable energy formed into a strangely formed portal. Pokey screamed as the mech was sucked in, and began sucking in various objects in it's range, including chunks of destroyed rock and other debris. it then began to lose force, and the pull of the portal became almost non-existant, and the portal then totally vanished. The others fearfully and nervously came out from their hiding place, to see Pokey and the portal totally gone. "Where'd... where'd he go?" asked Ness, with a slight sweatdropped. "Hopefully somewhere we'll never have to deal with him again." Jeff sounded satisfied with the results. Suddenly another world ripple materialized right in front of them with a flash of energy. They backed up in fear, expecting it to try and suck them in as well, but it remained stable. However, the ice began melting all around the arena, and the arena began to flood. "We better get out of here fast!!" Paula screamed, "Water's rising quick!" "We have to use the ripple. It's the only way out right now." Jeff advised. He didn't have to repeat himself. Everyone had already started bolting through the ripple. "At least I didn't have to repeat myself that time." Jeff then hurriedly jumped into the ripple.

*********

The group bolted out of the other end of the world ripple, escaping the doomed arena of Pokey, along with some water, which stopped as the ripple disappeared once again after the last of them bolted out of the ripple's proximity. They all sighed with relief, panting and gasping. They then regained their bearings and took a look at the new surroundings. This new place was one of the most interesting places for a world ripple to spit them out of. They had now found themselves to be on a large cloud, presumably in the high skies of somewhere. They cloud stretched on for a distance all around them. They didn't have much time to react, as they saw a group of figures headed right towards them. "Woah! Those guys are moving at us fast!" Artemis looked at them with a curious look. As their view more clear, they could make out four figures, and one of them suddenly made Ness, Paula and Jeff form smiles. "Hey that's..." Paula started. "That's Poo!" Jeff confirmed for her. "Poo! Good to see you again!" Ness called. Poo replied in a slight Dalaamese accent, "Ness, I see we're finally united again. Paula and Jeff are also with you, and it seems you've found some friends as well." "Poo, who are your friends?" asked Paula. Three other men were along with Poo. Two of them wore the same helmet, but one wore a large breastplate for armor, another had a black vest with a blue cape. The bulkier of the two helmeted men carried a large sword, the other carried a strangle symbolic looking object. The other was a man in a blue robe, which covered some of his face, but not all of it, and carried a large stick a strange skull shape on the end, looking to animate with red energy. "Ness, remember when I told you I was having some dilemmas with a dream of mine? These three men suddenly found themselves in Dalaam. They are Baratus, the man with the sword. Daedolon, in the cloak with the staff, and Parias, in the black and blue cape with the holy symbol. According to them, they had come from a world of undead creatures, after an encounter with a powerful force known as Korax." "Korax?! You must be... the three warriors who slayed Korax 100s of years ago!" Artemis realized what was going on. Baratus replied, "Correct... and trust us... Korax is no pushover... and now we've learned he was alive again, along with another of the blasted Serpent Riders." Artemis decided to explain what his group had been through with D'Sparil, Giygas and Korax's forces. Both groups thoroughly introduced each other, and recuperated. "Hmmm, well. This cloud is strange." Poo replied, "The cloud is right alongside Dalaam right now, and we noticed something big in the distance, so we set off and checked the cloud to see if it was safe. Along the way, we saw that pesky world ripple open up and spit what was appearently you guys out of it." "Something in the distance?" asked Jeff. "It's behind you guys. It's hard to see right now, but it's there." Poo replied. The other group turned around and looked carefully. Klump was the first to spot the structure. "Hmmm... it looks like a small crypt or something from here." he said, "I guess that's where we have to go." "I guess we're all one large group now." Parias replied, still looking towards the crypt-like place. "Well, let's the best of it. We're probably going to be going through this for a while." Paula replied. 

The group set off to the large structure which seemed miles ahead. It was a long 3 hours of walking, and some Starmen had tried to ambush them from behind and caused a lot of problems for the group then. Poo had to destroy the last Final Starman with PK Starstorm Omega, as everyone else had been blasted away by a Starstorm Alpha blast, and he was the only one close enough to hit the Starman. At last though, they had come to the large crypt-looking place. The walked onto more solid ground and saw two huge double doors made of stone. The group walked up, wondering how to budge it. "I wonder what's inside this place." Ness said, examining the door for any type of trigger that would open it. Poo spotted a small stone slab on the ground around the door, that seemed suspicious to him. He picked it up and examined it. One side had what seemed to be the shapes of four symbols engraved into it. Poo studied it closer. Underneath the engravings were small symbols. One looked like a ripple of water. Another looked like a small gust of wind. The third resembled a flame, and the last one looked like a large, jagged rock. Something suddenly flashed in his mind, and he for a split second saw four objects, one each embedded into where the engravings were. He then realized something. "Ness, I believe we have found a serious lead." Poo showed him, Paula and Jeff the engravement. "The Four Elements?" Paula asked, getting a good look. "So you also think the same thing I do, Paula." Poo replied. "The four elements?" asked Ness, "You mean like water and fire and such?" "Yes. There's something about this slab of stone. We need to hold onto it for now."

"You people had best run along home now..." they then heard from above them. "What?! Who's there?!" Corvus jumped up, holding his staff out, looking for the source of the voice. "Surely, you wouldn't think of facing the lord of all hunger, would you?" the same voice said again. "Who are you?!" Poo called out to the voice. The culprit suddenly lowered down in front of them. He looked like a living... skeleton, except not still with some white hair, and he was riding on a shirveled up horse, and he also had a strange scale in his hands. "Who is that?" asked Klump, scratching his head. "I am called Famine, lord and master of starvation and suffering! I have been sent by Korax to stop you from finding the stone parchment you have there." he pointed to Poo. "So, the four elements are important to find Korax, are they?" Poo asked it. "Very perceptive, little man. I must say you've been smart and bold to get this far, but your luck runs out here!" Famine held out a large green ball of energy in his hand. He then hurled it at Poo, who rolled under it and shot PK Starstorm Omega. Famine laughed and vanished before the stars pummeled him. "Ha hah hah!! What's wrong?! Can't hit me?" Famine's voice cackled at Poo. Famine reappeared behind Poo. Ness saw this and tried to warn him, "Poo look out!!" Famine shot a strange beam which locked onto Poo. Poo began to struggle against the beam, growling in pain. Something about this beam was weakening him. He tried to let out at Famine with a series of punches and kicks, but the drain on his power was working quickly and he was unable to hit Famine. Suddenly a blast from one of Jeff's less powerful bottle rockets slammed into Famine's head. Famine lost his attack on Poo, and Poo fell to his knees, weakened. "That beam... it... it's like suffering from a famine..." Poo gasped and collasped. "Poo! Hold on!" Ness rushed to Poo and used Healing Gamma, bringing Poo back into consciousness. "Poo, you said that beam... it causes someone's personal famine?" "I believe so, Ness. When he hit me, my energy drained out of me quickly." As they discussed this, Baratus had swung his sword at Famine launching 6 green shots which pelted him and dissolved some of his already rotting bones. Parias held out the holy symbol in his hand and blast a large ball into Famine, which split into several ghostly creatures, which began attacking Famine relentlessly. Ness growled, "You'll pay for that Famine!!" and gathered up his energy like he had never before, and shot a new version of PK Special, it felt like many instances of his Alpha level, but they overall equaled more damage to Famine then his original PK Special Omega could ever do. Ness panted, "W... wow... I learned a new power... sweet..." Famine was, needless to say, enraged by Ness's new attack. Jeff slipped the HP monitor over his eye and scanned Famine. The reading was a "2791". "He's still got a good deal of energy left in him!" Jeff told everyone else. Artemis quickly reacted and formed himself into a ball and charged right at Famine. However, the horseman shot out three bolts of green energy, which all hit Artemis. While he was barely damaged, it had knocked the cat out of his attack. "Darn!" he growled, "I can't hit him with that, so... Slicer Beam!!" he arced his cutting beam through Famine and his horse, leaving a large mark on both. Jeff was now reading a "2455" on Famine. Famine had now recollected his attention on Ness. He was bent on getting even for this little attack of his. He blasted Ness with a few bolts, knocking him backwards, and suddenly teleported behind Ness, cackling. Ness felt a blow to the head and went flying onto his face near the large doors. "Stop it!!" Jeff growled and shot Famine with another Bottle Rocket, but he blasted it aside with his energy, and started shooting bolts towards Jeff. Corvus was now focusing energy into his hands, and threw a large, spiked ball of energy at Famine. Famine screamed as the ball slammed into both him and his horse, knocking them aside from their attack on Jeff. Famine looked at Corvus in rage. "Die, slayer of D'Sparil!!" he formed another beam and prepared to shoot Corvus and charged forth, but at the last moment, he jerked over and began to fall, and was flung from his horse. He got a glimpse at the cause of the problem: Paula had suddenly had enough and nailed the horse with a hard kick at mid-attack, knocking Famine into the air. He suddenly growled, as Paula foot landed in his own face, sending him up into the air and onto the ground. It didn't hurt him that much, but it enraged him that this puny girl could knock his horse right out from under him. "Who do you think you are, you little homewrecker?!" he growled at Paula. Paula merely scowled, she seemed angered with him over something personal. "So you were the one.." Paula scolded him. "Huh? What one?!" Famine asked. "Your the one responsible for my horrible nightmares I was having in the last year! Yes. I can recognized the chaos you're causing now is similar to the one in all my dreams. I even heard your cackle once!" Paula was now charging up her power, and creating a new attack of her own. Famine growled, "Just what makes you think you can.. b... b. AAAHHH!!" he ended in a scream when he looked up above Paula's head. Everyone else looked up and gaped in surprised. A large bird of fire was forming a few yards above the angered Paula. "Erk.. she doesn't get this mad too often, but when she does..." Ness gulped, not finishing. The large bird grew a little more and squawked down at Famine. "N... no... you can't..." "I can." she said in a cold voice and threw her hands out at Famine, and the bird of fire swooped down at him. He screamed as it blazed down at him, and then through him, setting him ablaze, and causing him to fall to the ground, wasting away from the licking flames. " Paula gasped from the energy usage, and fell to one knee. The new attack was awesome in power, but it used it a lot of her PK power to use it. "You won't survive... my friends... will be the end of you..." Famine's voice weakened as the fire completely consumed him. 

"Wow... I've never seen her do that before..." Jeff said, a little surprised. Ness ran to Paula, who was still weakened from her attack. "Where did you learn that? And... what dreams were you talking about?" he asked. "Ness... remember all the times you saw me training myself? Well... I was having terrible nightmares about Eagleland. Something like a plauge or a famine was consuming the entire country. I had even felt the pain a few times, although not many. Famine... somehow he was the cause of most of this. When I recognized his voice, something in me snapped, and I had to destroy him. Perhaps that will finally stop my nightmares..." Paula said, beginning to cry into his shirt a little. Ness comforted her, "Paula.. I... didn't realize this... so this... was why you train your powers all the time. I guess it's a useful excuse, but you destroyed him. He's gone now Paula. You don't have to worry anymore." Paula looked up, and wiped her eyes, "Yeah, I guess I can rest easy, but I'm still worried about Giygas. What if we can't defeat these guys?" "There's always a way." Ness assured her. "Yes, but everyone's luck can't last forever either." Paula responded. "Paula, you've changed a lot since I first met you. You used to be nervous in many situations when I first got to know you. You've become a lot braver." Ness told her. "Yeah, your influence of bravery has rubbed off on a lot of us. Jeff was quite the scaredy cat once, but even he was brave enough to inspect a raid on Snow Wood, so I think it's safe to say your courage rubs off on us." Paula smiled slightly, and Ness felt a bit at ease. But Paula then looked down at the ground with a strange expression. "Or perhaps a small tad of my past is coming back..." she whispered to herself too quietly for anyone else to hear. Meanwhile, the flames from Famine's demise had disappeared, and Poo's eyes widened as he spotted an object in Famine's place. He thought very closely and recalled the symbol. It was on the stone parchment that he found when that image flashed through his head. He walked over and picked it up and studied it. After a few second, he inserted the object into the second engraved spot, and he felt it seal itself into it. "Guys! I've found one the four elements! Famine dropped when he perished." Poo said. "Hmmm... we must have to have the four elements to find Korax. The problem is, we don't know where the other elements are." said Jeff. "Hey, I really hate to stop us all short, but when was the last time we all took a good rest?" asked Artemis, "I know that vitalization machine of Jeff's dad is nice and all, but nothing truly beats a good rest." "You're tried already?" asked Parias. "Sorry if you guys just got rest, but the rest of us haven't slept in a quite some time." Artemis retorted. "Very well, I guess we could sack out for now." Ness said, "Paula, Poo and I need to regenerate our PK powers anyways after all that fighting." After a bit of talking and preparation, the group all lied down on the ground and decided to go to sleep for a while. While they were asleep, the double doors in their way, slowly creaked opened, as if they were waiting for the group to wake up and go inside...

[Well, I got that one done. Thanks for waiting on me, and thanks more for reading this! ^_^]


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